REMASTERED FOR 2025: Our most popular episode of all time. 

Listen in as longtime Burners talk about the dynamic aspects of thriving in Black Rock City: mental, physical, material, and relational.
Andie, kbot, Molly, Stuart, and Vav explore:

• socks secrets
• FOMO variants
• saying yes and saying no
• giving and accepting help
• No Friends Monday

and much more and other and new!

Featuring cameos from longtime Burners: Anjelika, Chef Juke, Crimson Rose, DA, Dave X, Halcyon, KJ, and Lulu Lurine.

They discuss doing it all, doing it right, and doing it wrong, as access to being real.

Don’t just pack. Prepare. Here’s how to have BRC overwhelm you in a good way.

Black Rock City 2025

Burning Man Journal

John Craigie (YouTube)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Zander was the executive director of The Long Now Foundation, dedicated to long term thinking. He also helped build their library, a book club for the end of the world, with all the titles we would want to rebuild civilization, if needed. 

He is one of the brains behind the 10,000-Year Clock, designed to tick off the years, and chime the centuries. He’s now co-creating the future of the web at Automattic. 

He and his team are bringing a library to Black Rock City, to the World’s Fair pavilion under The Man. It’s a refreshing opposite. Like his theme camp inside a refrigerator truck NOT being hot, this library is about NOT being burnt. It’s an ephemeral manual for civilization. We the participants will choose what books to save from burning.

Zander shares stories on the effects of books, websites, and rituals, as well as Burning Man’s past, present, and future.

This episode is on YouTube here.

rosefutures.com

BRC Honoraria Art (Burning Man Journal)

A group for those who want to participate (Facebook)

https://longnow.org

A Pavilion for Tomorrow Today (Burning Man Journal)

wikipedia.org/Clock_of_the_Long_Now

Kevin Kelly: Optimists Create the Future (Burning Man LIVE)

Photo by Brendon Hall

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

AI is a context changer, a shaker upper, and a force multiplier to what our human minds can do.

Andie says that AI is a major philosophical shift in humanity, and when this kind of thing happens, the first people she goes to are artists and academics.

Andie and Stuart talked with a few artists and academics about their AI infused art coming to Black Rock City. They share their dreams and nightmares, and how to 'go beyond.'

 · Chad Elish — Verse-O-Matic

 · Kate Greenberg, Deva Temple, Eric Vicenti — "Out the Other"

 · Dr Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä, Kiana Kaiser, Michael Zeltner — Burning Stories & Burner AI

This is transforming personal stories, creating unique dialogues between humans and the machines that reflect us, the good, the bad, and the ugly… and the beautiful… and the surprising. 

Here is how artists conjure creativity and empathy using AI at Burning Man, a home for art to push against and learn from.

Burning Man LIVE: Dr Heikkilä and the Science of Participatory Culture

Burning Man Journal: Burning Stories Research Team

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Kevin Kelly is a leading thinker of the digital age. The founding editor of Wired Magazine, he helped produce the Whole Earth Catalog, and an early internet pillar called the WELL. He is a journalist, an artist, and a longtime member of the Burning Man community.

He is a radical optimist.

The future is a construct of the collective imagination. We see utopian stories as too pie-in-the-sky. We have a morbid curiosity for dystopian stories. What’s in between? Iterative improvement. Protopia.

Delve into this conversation on cultural narratives, the transformative potential of AI, and the context shift into lifelong-learning.

"It’s not that our problems are smaller than we thought, it’s just that our capacities to solve them are greater than we thought."

wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Kelly_(editor)

kk.org

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Black Rock City's soundscape is a wild ride from Afro-punk to Zydeco. This episode explores the why and how of two styles: 

• the thumping electronic dance music that makes BRC a DJ's Mecca
• the anything-goes improv of jazz, a dusty mirror to the Burner spirit

Stuart, a self-proclaimed EDM newbie, gets a crash course from a DJ in the know. He chats with a legendary DJ about how Burning Man transmogrifies DJ culture into something utterly unique. It’s a refreshing deep dive for aficionados!

Then, Allie spins the radio dial through BRC's sonic smorgasbord and tunes into jazz. For decades, the Playa Jazz Cafe has been hosting live musicians in a dreamy, pop-up club. Camp lead and "hack” jazz musician Neil Kelly shares stories of serendipity, alchemy, and in-the-moment vibes of jazz at Burning Man.

What's the harmony between a big-name beat-dropper and a jazz flow pro? BRC magic cannot be bottled without a loss of taste and potency. You just gotta be there.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scumfrog

campsite.bio/thescumfrog

playajazz.com/tunes

instagram.com/playajazzcafe

facebook.com/PlayaJazzCafe

zingari.com/niel-kelly.html

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Leo is a pioneering light artist, bringing teams and tech together to activate buildings, bridges, and bastions. He started Burning in 1994, founded Disorient camp, and is part of Black Rock City every year.

Here he shares his journey from crafting a single beacon at his tent to leading monumental art projects that reshaped skylines. He illuminated the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the historic bridges of London, and projects everywhere from NYC to Tokyo.

Join Leo and Stuart on how the open-source innovation of BRC impacts the default world. Leo shares his process for conjuring tech, from customizing LED fixtures to coding sequences. 

He describes how artists can engage with their communities outside of their comfort zones. 

He tells stories of the convening power of photons as an artistic medium, as a digital campfire for all.

Hear him flip the switch, and stay until the brilliant end.

villareal.net/bio

villareal.net/urban-scale-artworks

burningman.org/about/board-of-directors/#LeoVillareal

disorient.info

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Thunderdome has been part of Black Rock City for 25 years. Marisa Winter has led it for most of that time. One need not experience it to benefit from the wisdom of a high-profile, high-intensity theme camp.

Marisa and Stuart talk through the leadership structure and community practices that result in Thunderdome's chaotic harmony of performance, showmanship, and cathartic “consensual violence.” 

Marisa shares insights gleaned from decades of theme camp operation, like

· Letting people make non-permanent mistakes allows them to own the lessons

· Prioritizing community is never the wrong answer

· Making hard decisions ASAP attracts quality people

· How to schedule your crying day!

Listen in on their laughter, and tolerate the cringe stories (that prove Thunderdome is not cosplay), and you will be rewarded with the inspiration and institutional knowledge of the infamous Death Guild Thunderdome.

www.divamarisa.com

www.deathguildthunderdome.com

journal.burningman.org/author/diva-marisa

playaevents.burningman.org/2024/playa_event/48007

https://burningman.org/programs/philosophical-center

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Most people in Black Rock City live together in placed camps, aka theme camps, the most unique aspect of this unique event. BRC has 1200 camps.

At the intersection of Communal Effort, Self-Expression, and Immediacy, theme camps gift a uniquely decommodified ‘third place’ of offerings and ambiance.

At this annual symposium, staff and volunteers share how they gift their interactive camps to participants. There’s an art and a science to it. These highlights are about the art of it.

• Bryant Tan (aka Level Placerman): head of Placement
• Andie Grace: Producer in the Philosophical Center
• Charlie Dolman: Director of Event Operations
• DA (aka Dominic Tinio): Environmental Restoration Manager
• Harley K Dubois: Founder & Chief Cultural Officer
• Stuart Mangrum: Director of the Philosophical Center

and a keen crew of Placement Team volunteers 

• Bravo
• Cosmic
• Governess
• Hepkitten
• Huntress
• KGB
• Razzmatazz

Hear how it started, how it’s going, and how Burners create these unique and interactive passion projects. 

Camps and Placement | Burning Man

Placement: About Us & Volunteering

Camp Support Team | Burning Man

De-bureaucratizing Your Burn (Burning Man LIVE 2025)

Charlie Dolman · The Dust is in the Details (Burning Man LIVE 2022)

Dark Angel of Black Rock & Restoration Destiny (Burning Man LIVE 2020)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Solar power is simple now, thanks in part to Burners who gift the power of the sun. The Burners in this episode also gift steamed rolls with savory fillings, called bao — so much delicious bao.

The theme camp “Bao Chicka Wow Wow” has been a part of Black Rock City for a decade. Its campmates share the prosperity of bao with artist groups, volunteer teams, and participants lucky enough to find their camp or their pop-up “restaurant row,” all powered by custom solar kits.

David Hau (Chairman Bao), Marcus De Paula (Next Level), and their campmates also refined their solar systems to power a charging station for EVs and e-Mutant Vehicles. They share their learnings with neighboring camps, the Temple Builders Guild, and us right here in this episode.

This is how to wean off gas generators, or bring more power to your offerings at BRC, your Regional event, your home, or even the collapse of civilized civilization. 

This conversation is lively and informative. It’s a feel-good story set for foodies and those of us growing into gifting and solar energy.

BaoChickaWowWow.com

GoGridSystems.com

Burning Man 2025: Tomorrow Today

Burning Man Inspires Sustainable Solutions Worldwide (Burning Man Journal)

Net Zero Black Rock City 2022

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Explore the magic monuments of Black Rock City 2025.

Katie Hazard, Director of Art, leads the selection, placement, and installation of artwork,  and she leads Burning Man's art grant selection committees. 

The ARTery is in the center of Black Rock City, slightly offset like the human heart. It’s the epicenter of art support for nearly 400 art pieces, from towering sculptures to immersive environments.

Before these art projects are sourced, crafted, and assembled with everything from hot glue to heavy equipment, they are first conceptualized by artists and engineers. Burning Man’s Honoraria project grants 76 of these art projects about half of the funding they need, a total of $1.3 million.  

Katie and Stuart explore how to foster accessibility and agency in artist groups. They describe some of the installations coming this summer, from interactive Sphinxes to a sphere of sinks, from a lost troll of sustainability to a fire-spinning pigeon. 

Some of the experiences include:

• an inflatable black cloud from Ukraine
• an Indigenous deer destined for ceremonial land
• an Afrofuturist pillar with an ancient modern secret
• a screaming booth that displays visual reactions to sound
• a woman with a merry-go-round crown, jump rope dreadlocks, and swing earrings

Listen in on this sonic journey of how Burner art is co-created and curated, and how BRC’s surreal skyline is taking shape.

Introducing 2025 BRC Honoraria Art (Burning Man Journal)

Black Rock City Honoraria Program

ARTery (Art Services)

The ARTery Volunteer Teams

Katie Hazard (Burning Man Journal)

2025 Art Theme: Tomorrow Today

Burning Man Art Installation Archive

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG