We committed to be carbon-negative by 2030. How will we do it? We have “Burning” right in our name.

When it comes to solar, biofuels, and energy banks, we have many irons in the fire, or rather, we are planting many seeds. Hear how Black Rock City is a hotbed, or rather, a garden bed, for the innovation of clean energy.

Stuart talks with George B Reed III, Associate Director of Burning Man Project’s Off Fossil Fuels program about the progress we’re making for a brighter future, or rather... yeah, a brighter future.

George shares what Burning Man’s leadership has been developing to be in integrity with our principles, from composting organic waste for food cultivation, to making renewable diesel from captured carbon. He shares stories of our community preventing and reversing damage to the climate. 

Hear how we’re collectively rewiring reality, showing our work, and sharing what we know. Here’s how you can do it for your camp, your cohort, your city.

Burning Man Project: 2030 Environmental Sustainability Roadmap

burningman.org: About Us / Sustainability (updated Oct 2023) 

The Renewables for Artists Team

The Green Theme Camp Community & BLAST

Burning Man Journal: Your Checklist for LNT in BRC (2023)

Burning Man Journal: Waking Dreams: Evoking Greener Burns (2022)

Burning Man Journal: Sustainability Initiatives on the Road to Black Rock City (2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 1: We Can, We Will, We Must (Aug 2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 2: The Road to Regeneration (Aug 2022)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

The desert seems lifeless, yet it’s home to a whole lifecycle of bugs and animals from bunnies to foxes, from lions to horses to – most dangerous of all – COWS! Hear about the hidden lives of all that’s alive around Black Rock City.

Stuart talks with biologist Dr Lisa Beers aka Sciprus. When she’s not teaching in remote villages on the other side of the planet, she’s Burning Man Project’s land fellow studying the Fly Hot Springs territory.

In the face of mystery, she has the surprising answers, or at least more questions, and aren’t questions as good as answers? Aren’t they?

How do butterflies know to ride the jet stream from Canada to Mexico and back? 

What do sea monkeys have to do with Fairy Shrimp Scampi?

How do feral Burners adapt from arid & dusty to moist & muddy?

journal.burningman.org/author/scirpus

Burning Man Live: Ep 25: Scirpus and the Majestic Fly Ranch

The Black Rock Desert of Nevada (wikipedia)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

How would you overcome shyness at BRC?

How would you break people’s brains at SantaCon?

How would you acculturate museum docents to Burner culture?

Brody Scotland shares how she did it, and how she went from hating Black Rock City to working year round in the Burning Man Art department.

Brody and Stuart delve into the uncommon common sense of self-care and “feelings” in the emo roller coaster of BRC. They explore a style of pranking where no one is the butt of the joke. And they celebrate “Shit Dave X Says.”

From hand-crafting iconic costumes, to logistics-crafting “weird little odd art,” this is a string of lively stories about Brody’s bespoke approach to increasing happiness.

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Journal)

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Staff) 

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man (Smithsonian Institution)

Dave X (Burning Man Journal) & Shit Dave X Says 

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Stuart and Burning Man’s Community Services head honcho Terry “Retro” Schoop riff on the streets of our fair city and the naming thereof, from the controversial to the miraculous to the misunderstood. Black Rock City has elaborate art themes, each with street names, each with curious conditions. Why does our recreational refugee camp even need street names? Were they always alphabetical around an imaginary clock face? And what’s a clock anyway? 

Hear this year’s art theme (ANIMALIA) express itself through cryptids (animals that no one can prove are real). Folklore and fandom brought us our new ABC street names: Afanc, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Dingbat… and NOT the Easter Bunny, thanks to Encantados, which are were-dolphins that shape-shift into dapper dancers in search of a party.  

This is an episode with literature, lore, and laughter — and a pile of BRC trivia for street cred.

Streets of BRC 2023: Cavalcade of Cryptids | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man 2023: ANIMALIA

Terry “Retro” Schoop | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man Staff: Terry Schoop

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Yes, Burning Man has a Chief Technology Officer, and his name is Steven Blumenfeld. In this episode Stuart chats with “Bloom” about art, innovation, immediacy, and the power of the unexpected, with trippy side trips into AR, VR, and AI (and TLA).

Yes, we have a CTO. We have all the enterprise tech needs of any not-small non-profit, with the added complications of ridiculously challenging work sites, a staff that’s mostly seasonal volunteers, and an ethos rooted in Ten Principles that don’t always line up with ideals of Big Tech or engineering efficiency. You don’t build a city of 80,000 in the desert — or a global community of dreamers and doers — without bending a few bits and bytes. Or stepping on a few tech-bro toes.

Bloom shares stories from his colorful career at the intersection of art and technology, from working with Al Gore at Current Media to pioneering the “always two years away” world of virtual reality. And he does his best to reassure Stuart that AI will not be taking his job… yet.

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Psychedelics advocate and amateur Burning Man scholar John Turner’s two passions come together in one interdimensional rabbit-hole of a website: Trippingly.net. In compiling the ultimate fan site of Burning Man history, John has captured a lot of great playa stories, and he shares some of the best in this conversation with Stuart.

He explores the subjective unknowns of Burning Man events and psychedelics as same-same-but-different. Bring your neural nets to be plasticized. Bring your ego to be dissolved. It’s a trip through the past, and a trip through presence.

But when an interviewer interviews another interviewer, things can get weird. Together they explore the power of story (good and bad), who remembers what, who takes credit, and the subjective nature of consciousness. It’s a reflection on memory, serendipity, and the power of not knowing.

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” ~Mark Twain (as quoted by Larry Harvey)

trippingly.net

John B Turner (LinkedIn)

shulginresearch.net

cacophony.org

Cacophony Society (Wikipedia)

Burning Man 2023 art theme: ANIMALIA

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

She traveled to six continents for Burning Man Regional Events, to get to the heart of an ever-evolving global culture that creates community in a disconnected world. She wrote a book about it, and we published it!

It chronicles her odyssey to

• Afrikaburn (South Africa)
• Black Rock City (USA)
• Blazing Swan (Australia)
• Burning Japan (Japan)
• Fuego Austral (Argentina)
• Midburn (Israel)
• Nowhere (Spain)

Hear Roxane's impressions of each wildly unique event in this audio travelog. She talks with Stuart about how she would work, Burn, write, repeat. They explore how Burning Man culture rubs up against other cultures as it spreads. 

As an aid worker, Roxane sees first hand how vibrant Burner networks create positive impact. Burning Man events transform people, AND some people become Burners before ever attending a Burning Man event, by resonating with the 10 Principles and crossing paths with Burners up to new good. 

Once Upon a Time in the Dust: Burning Man Around the World (the Book)

Burning Man Journal: Books About Burning Man: Roxane Jessi

Regionals Reawaken: A Blog Series by Roxane Jessi

BurnersWithoutBorders.org

regionals.burningman.org

Roxane Jessi

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Most people in Black Rock City live together in placed camps, aka theme camps, the most unique aspect of a most unique event. There are almost 1300 camps in BRC. 

The annual Camp Symposium brought together dozens of staff and volunteers to talk out what they do to gift their interactive camp to BRC.

Hear (or read) highlights from the Plenary, many voices sharing knowledge and exploring ideas. 

Bryant Tan, aka Level, Associate Director of Placement, and a spaghettification of speakers: 

• Breedlove: Director of Civic Engagement
• Charlie: Director of Event Operations
• Claire of the Green Theme Camp Community
• DA: Environmental Restoration Manager
• Marian: CEO of Burning Man Project
• Trixxie of the Placement Team
• Yeti of the Camp Support Team

Here is how to 

• enjoy Leaving No Trace
• make frameworks for leaders
• build boundaries of community
• hold a center for our cultural vision
• make sense of mysterious acronyms!

“We build the hive, they bring the honey.” ~Larry Harvey

Camps and Placement | Burning Man

Cultural Direction Setting & Decommodification

Placement: About Us & Volunteering

Camp Support Team | Burning Man

Waking Dreams: Evoking Greener Burns

greentheme.camp

thrival.guide

Leaving No Trace 2022: MOOP Maps, Inspection, and the #1 MOOP

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

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

Why People Dress Funny at Burning Man (2003)

Peter Doty Obituary (San Francisco Chronicle)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Katie Hazard leads Art Management for Burning Man and the committee that grants more than a million dollars to artists each year to create art that’s first stop (and sometimes only stop) is Black Rock City.

She shares about some of the grant recipients that align with this year’s Black Rock City art theme (ANIMALIA). She and Stuart Mangrum discuss Burning Man’s art movement in relation to, and sometimes in opposition to, “capital-A art,” and the default art world's manufactured scarcity and opaqueness. They explore how to grant accessibility and agency to artists, professional and amateur, personally and collectively.

“Many people come for the art, and they stay for the community.” ~Larry Harvey

Slides of the Art Projects Mentioned (in the order discussed) 

Introducing the 2023 Black Rock City Honoraria (Burning Man Journal)

Katie Hazard (Burning Man Journal)

2023 Art Theme: ANIMALIA

The ARTery at Black Rock City

Desert Arts Preview: Artists of Waking Dreams (2022 podcast)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

As a founder and co-producer of one of the largest and oldest Burning Man events, Monique Shiess has a lot going on. AfrikaBurn does too. Started in 2007, it averages 10,000 participants annually in recent years. 

Monique shares its origins with Stuart and Andie. From the EDM scene, gallery spaces, queer community, and producers of “weird gatherings,” they birthed AfrikaBurn with roots in anarchy, trickster energy and hippie-dom. 

They explore how to be welcoming, not just radically inclusive, in the aftermath of Apartheid, and the context of global trends, on the land of indigenous people.

Then there’s the fun part. Monique says that play is the vector for changing the world by accessing aspects of yourself that go dormant in the default world, and that all Burn movements have paradigm shifting potential while also having a ton of fun with “the best humans that exist.”

www.afrikaburn.org

AfrikaBurn (Wikipedia)

Practising Imagining (TEDx Cape Town)

Events Change Lives: AfrikaBurn Legacy Case Study

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG