Burning Man 2004: Vault of Heaven

Pictures and Videos

First Impressions

Mind you, the event was still incredible, and even if I missed a few things in the base city (see below), none of this makes some of the existing city landmarks, like Center Camp, less pretty

• I'm disappointed by the platform the man is standing on (or lack thereof to be precise). It looks like a geodesic dome (made out of empty triangles, like the mad max thunderdome), which might be nice, but does not allow climbing up it, and getting great pictures from the man, looking at everything else around me, like I did the last two years.
• My second disappointment was they didn't even have the 4 lasers at 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees pointing towards the man. Those looked great at night, and they are sorely missed. See these pictures for an example.
• It's also missing the 4 pyramids the lasers used to come from. Two years ago, those were there, and had a beacon light that would pulsate and show you whether it was 90, 180, 270, or 0 degrees. It might not sound like much, but it was very convenient for finding your way back, especially after landmarks like the man and the temple of the year had burnt

Random factoids and picts

• I stayed with dustfish on Esplanade and 7 o'clock (damn, I still miss the degrees, that would have been 72 degrees). Anyway, it was quite cool to be on esplanade (as long as you have a good set of hear plugs for whenever you were actually planning to sleep). It was great to be able to stay with my old friends Amy and Hans (who I still owe thanks to for getting most of my stuff to the camp)

  
  
  

• This year, the weather was quite lenient during the event. For that matter it was even a little bit cold (which was a small problem at night, but meant cooler days too). We didn't have any rain or heavy dust storm, you just had to have some layers on at night.
  Luckily, despite the lack of rain, we still had a few clouds, and some very nice sunsets/sunrises

  
  
  

• I've always been a sucker for random art on the playa, and this year was no exception. Some of my favorites static displays included:

  
  
  
  
  

  and in the animated ones, I'm not even sure how to describe this one, but it was hella cool (like Cartman would say :). You can also check out the video to have a better idea of how it was (it'll bring you to the relevant section of the picture library)

  
  
  

  Another really cool one was the animated Neon display which you could control in many different ways

  
  
  
  
  

  You can also check out the video to have a better idea of how it was (it'll bring you to the relevant section of the picture library, which also shows a lot of Playa pictures taken at night)
  
  
• Similarly, burning man wouldn't it what it is without the random constructions based on fire, and playing with fire.
  Some of the clever ones I saw included handling fire with big fans

  
  
  

  (check out the video to have a better idea of how it was (it'll bring you to the relevant section of the picture library)

  Other similar and cool uses of fire included musical instruments like the fire organ, and the fire breathing dragons

  
  
  
  
  

  But there were many others (not counting the actual burns), from fire juggling, to a very clever full set of ground fireworks set on the ground, and randomly set off almost all at once.

  
  
  
  
  

  You like fire, are your a aspiring pyromaniac? :)
  Well, you can find the rest of the random fire pictures here
  
  
• Like the previous years, I biked most of the streets of the city to see all the camps. I skipped the two outermost rings this year though, mostly due to lack of time and because overall they just aren't as interesting (sorry if you were there).
  While I was under the impression that there were fewer camps with "attractions", that doesn't mean that there weren't any. Some were old, and some were new.
  By avoiding the two outer rings, I was a able to bike all the other streets from 6 o'clock to 2 o'clock on friday, and do the other half on saturday (sunday is kind of a rest/pack day, so you had better visit everything before then). I found that it made more sense to see almost everything, and have the time to spend a little time at nice camps, and enjoy hanging out in them, and chat with the people there instead of running around in a quest to finish off the last street before daylight runs out.
  I can't give justice to everyone, this page would just be too long, but a few of my favorites were: The Swinger's Lounge (also known as one of the most dangerous rides since you would seriously hurt yourself if you let go), the skateboard ramp was cool for being unexpected (and having decent skaters on it), Kidsville with its school district, story time, and alternate energy zone and hushville adjacent to it, was pretty cool too. Last, but not least, the Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro: the most un-PC by far, and probably not funny to people directly involved, or people who don't know who Klaus Barbie is. Yet, in a very wrong way, I found it amusing and well done (please don't send me hate mail, see this as second or third degree dark humour, nothing else).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  You can find pictures of all the camps during daylight and night time, or other favorites like Thunderdome, RollerDisco in the main Camps Page

  Not counting the many camps that were offering drinks, snowcones, and so forth, I stopped at a camp where someone was giving an informal lecture about the creation of the universe, all the way to us. It's kind of funny to find those, just like the math class that a guy was giving last year.
  Sometimes, I'd love to stay and chat with every cool camp, but that's just not possible, even if you count the way too many camps that didn't have any theme, or anything cool on display. Yet, I've been trying to do a better job to actually spend time talking with random people and enjoying what there was to see instead of trying to see it all. I've felt like I probably missed some dimension of the experience by running around so much last years, so I tried to mellow out a little bit this time :)
  
  

• Another fun part of Burning Man is meeting all the people with fun costumes that they've come up with. Credits also goes to the lamplighters who make sure our city is light up at night.
  My personal favorites were the Alice in Wonderland Bush puppets.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
• Of course, a fun tradition of burning man is the annual Critical Tits bike ride, which was comprized of more women than I could count (really), and there was a funny "critical dicks" spoof before that.
  As for the women who might be tempted to ask "but don't you get tired after a while of watching all those tits go by?", the answer is of course "hell, no"

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  All the pictures of people can be found here
  
  
• Another fun thing at burning man is seeing all the weird bikes that people build (see the other ones here)

  
  
  
  
  
  this bike is quite interesting, watch the video

  
  
  
• In addition to the bikes, the Art Cars/Mutant Vehicles (as named by the local DMV) are as entertaining as ever.
  You can find the other ones here)

  
  Do you need your driveway dusted out?
  
  
  
  
  This solar panel powered one is very cool too
  
  
  Or try this one on for size
  
  
  Yes, I'm still a sucker for battlezone. This is just awesome
  
  
  
  
  Ok, this one gets points for creativity and humour

  
  
  
• So, if you heard rumours that they burn a man there, it might just be true . So, in the past two years, the man has been a nice thing to go visit and climb, to get a good view of the city. Unfortunately, this year it wasn't on a useful pedestal, so you didn't have 2 or 3 stories you could climb and use as a great view of the city at night, a damn shame if you ask me.
  For the burn itself, I made the mistake of sitting at 12 o'clock of the man, which was pretty much down-wind. Because the man wasn't sitting on a wooden structure, there wasn't much to burn, so it was mostly fireworks and other pyro, which I didn't get to enjoy too much due to the heavy smoke and my relative position. Oh well, I guess the burn 2 years ago was still my best burn, but at least nothing broke during the burn this year
  All the other pictures of the man are here

  
  
  
  Interesting structure, but nothing to climb or burn
  
  
  
  
  Where is my green laser beam?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
• The after burn is always an interesting moment. First, you'll realize that if you didn't park your bike very carefully next to a non moving landmark, you most likely won't find it again since your biggest orientation landmark just burned to the ground
  I walked around where the man used to be to check out the sea of art cars that had gathered around. This is the one time where everything and everyone is gathered in one place. This part is just impossible to describe in words, you just have to experience it to get a decent idea: art carts, music, lights, and more than you can imagine. This feeble picture is the best I can do to give you some idea, and you can check out the other ones here

  
  
  

  While I hadn't particularly lucked out when trying to find my favorite music in the clubs, I found an art car that was playing very nice trance, and luckily, it was still there when I had completed a wide lap around the man, trying to see everything. So, I hopped into that art car, and danced, chilled, and just enjoyed the music. A big set of thanks go to DJ Pascal for the great music he had mixed and played that night.

  
  
  

  
  
  
• This year's temple, the Temple of Stars (also known as the temple of forgiveness) was nice. It was a quarter of a mile wide, and of a similar construction than the Temple of Joy two years ago.
  Ok, maybe I'm just a creature of habit, but I really liked the cut out wood idea, and seeing this again was a happy surprise (not counting that hollowed out wood burns so well)
  The temple was quite pretty, and it was cool that one could climb it this year (I was wondering how sturdy hollow wood would be, more on that later). It was also not only nice to meet the designer of those temples as he gave a few small informal speeches and answered questions, and on the other side of the spectrum, I couldn't help but be deeply moved by all the messages and goodbyes that people had written to their lost loved ones and left in the temple.
  The burn went fine, until the main support structure bent under the intense heat, folded in half, and rested on the ground. The end result was the 4 pilar steel structure resting on the ground in 5 points and refusing to collapse since the fire heat had diminished by then, and it had no reason to tip over.
  Unfortunately, that meant that they couldn't let people run for the fire as they were afraid it might collapse on people I guess, and after an excruciating one hour of waiting, they finally brought it down by tying a winch cable around the structure and towing it down with a ranger car (most people outside of the first rows probably didn't get to see that)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  After enjoying all the art cars and music around you, you realized that it was even harder to find your bike since there was no nearby landmark left, and no good place where you could have left your bike and found it later. If you made it back to the city (well, ok, it wasn't *that* hard), you also realized that most people "liberated" the street signs as souvenir for home, and that as a result, it was a lot harder to get back to your camp (eh, guys, how about you wait for monday morning before stealing signs next year?)
  You can browse the remaining pictures of Temple of Stars

Conclusion

So, I was saying, I had a good time

Want more?

• Go see all the pictures here
• My other Burning Man reports
• More will be added soon (submit your links to me)

Copyright

Thanks,
Marc

2004/09/14 (11:15): Version 1.0
2004/09/14 (23:05): Version 1.1. A few clarifications on my impressions