Recorded in Black Rock City, you can hear the grainy gravitas of their voices...

For decades now, Jon Sarriugarte, Kyrsten Mate, their daughter and their team build mobile art. 

From a meter maid cart turned space shuttle, to a custom copper retro fire snail on wheels, their creations make up part of BRC's moving landscape. They built a trilobite to ride, a gilded golden zeppelin car, and a noir submarine buggy.

Then there are the Serpent Twins. Back in 2011, when the playa glowed with now outdated EL wire, these 50-foot long slithering dragons rippled with color from a touch of their LED skin.

What about this green insect rocket?

Project: EMPIRE returned to BRC with more sights, sounds, and stories. It’s a NASA spaceship and a giant bug, a bewildering blend of art, engineering, and a delightfully conspiratorial backstory…

On playa we tracked down Jon and his daughter Zolie who has been Burning her entire life. They shared stories of the absurd early days, and the adventure of navigating the desert in a two-ton masterpiece. 

We talked about bringing radical self-reliance to the default world, and the mechanics of a legacy built, piece by painstaking piece, in the name of art.

formandreform.com/empire-of-dirt

www.jonsarriugarte.com

projectempire.org

oilpunk.com

20 Years of Mutant Vehicles (Burning Man Journal)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG