Trial
by Fire

a Burning Man Experience

by Robert B. Gelman
Photos by Leo Nash and Jay Bain

I don't go to the Burning Man festival seeking spiritual enlightenment. I go because I like to revel in fire, dance and music. Nor do I go to Burning Man because I'm a student of anthropology and civilization, but rather because it's one of the few places on Earth where you can escape the constraints of modern civilization. And I certainly haven't made the pilgrimage to Burning Man these past eight years because I like driving seven hours to immerse myself in a hot, dry, hostile environment. Yet, I am always amazed at how my experience transcends all of these issues.

I know I must be there, and that I will come away profoundly affected. You might hear something like that from thousands who attend this event, yet each would be talking about an experience that is completely different and unique to them alone. Over the years I've read so many journalistic accounts of this festival, many by brilliant writers, and for the most part, they fail to convey the essence of Burning Man.

My own experience at last year's (1997) event was so intense, it has motivated me to join those before me who have attempted to share in words, this shared experience which defies literal communication. After reading, if you're so inclined, please drop me a note to let me know if I succeeded or not.

Labor Day Weekend 1997

As usual, there were wondrous works of art and performance that enveloped me and elicited my participation (I'm a drummer and part of the drumming collective that leads the procession to the man for his immolation). But even after eight years as part of this project, I was caught off guard and forced to once again re-examine my fundamental belief system, and view of creative expression in particular. I had a life-changing experience as a reaction-to and in interaction with a performance that on the face of it, was just a bunch of aggressive men and women bent on intimidating everyone in their path and burning everything they possibly could possibly get to. I had just met the "Vegematic."

The one fact no-one will dispute about the Burning Man festival is that things explode and burn there. What some might not want you to know is how dangerous these events actually are. Sure, the people designing the big pyrotechnic installations are skilled, but not necessarily professionals (at least in the pyro profession). I happen to know that some of the folks who prepare these displays for the festival enjoy putting their lives at risk in the pursuit of intense experience. I've been guilty of that myself from time to time, as it helps to remind me that I'm ALIVE.

The point is that this is not a sanitized, safety-bound event in which you need not be concerned for your well-being. You are putting yourself in danger by attending Burning Man. If you forget to drink enough water, you could die. Not watching where you are walking could make you an unwitting part of a fire-performance, getting injured or worse.

This situation presents an undeniable reality-shift from the world in which most of us live, where we expect governments and businesses to be our surrogate parents, to take care of our needs. We rely on courts to litigate our civil suits when we seek to make others responsible for what happens to us. It would be a much better world in which people would routinely take responsibility for their own well-being and the effects of their actions, in my opinion. That world exists at Burning Man.

The outrageous and absurd costumes, performances, theme camps and behaviors you observe only serve to enhance this shift of perceived reality to the extent that you begin to wonder what is real and what is not. Is that person truly a disgruntled postal worker, or just a stand-up comedian? Do they really know how big an explosion that contraption will create? Do I really need to worry whether they will burn down my tent?

Personally, I have no great attachment to everyday reality. I view it like a computer operating system that is useful mostly because it allows me to run the same software as most other people. We have no way of knowing whether there is such a thing as objective reality anyway, so why not enjoy the variety of a new one every now and then? Burning Man is nothing if not a smorgasbord of alternate realities. This then, is the frame of mind I found myself in on the festival's final day last year.

The anticipation of the "burn" builds the intensity of expression from the moment you arrive. You can feel it in the air. Sexual energy is intensified, primitive instincts usually dormant become shockingly prevalent. You are cro-magnon man, your life is a struggle, but you survive by your will, your wits, and your urge to evolve. And just how do you evolve? You express yourself.

I choose to express through ritual at this event. The drums I play hearken primitive aspects from within. The fire before me is the altar upon which I must make an offering. I select a treasured instrument, a drum which I have loved and played over time, and designate this physical thing as my sacrifice. Raising the drum above my head, I whirl in dizzying dervish-style until my fingers release their grasp and a thousand eyes bear witness to the short arc of flight. Landing amidst the white-hot embers of the now-fallen Burning Man, the sacrificial drum is vaporized in seconds. My catharsis achieved, I am now free to roam the desert playa, a character reborn to engage in human drama.

That's where I was when I encountered the Vegematic. It's straight out of hell, suggesting engineering from the industrial revolution transported to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Part vehicle, part flame-thrower, part earth drilling device, I envision this machine being used to battle creatures in a 1950's monster movie, or to torture souls of the damned in the realm of Satan. I'm immediately fascinated.

Sitting atop the thing, its creator Jim Mason invokes the motor which rotates the intimidating giant drill-bit head. A pressurized gas-charger propels a massive flame as much as seventy feet from the barrel at its center. A hand-crank allows Jim to raise the angle of the barrel to about 45 degrees so that it is now pointing at a large helium balloon about forty feet away.

I notice that there is a now a crowd gathered around this scene, made up of others who like me, find something about this spectacle compelling, at least for the moment. They may well be gentle loving people in another reality, but this is an angry mob, bent on destruction, preferably by fire. "Burn it!" the shout goes up as I hear the ominous groan of the Vegematic's motor for the first time.

A man with a bullhorn, known in the performance world as "Chicken John," offers a warning to the owners of the camp with the helium balloon: "step aside." Faced with this machine and the angry mob, that's exactly what they do. Then in an instant, a very loud, very hot, very bright arm of flame reaches out for the balloon, clenching it in a heated grasp. The explosion it creates is awesome enough to quiet the mob. Just a little, and for just a little while.

The visual appeal of the helium blast has swelled the ranks of the mob following the trail of the Vegematic. The ignition of the first target seemed to simply feed their hunger for more fire. Like medieval villagers, we migrate on to the next camp.

Here, a young artist (whose name I did not get) is sitting around a camp fire with his friends at the foot of a sculptural masterpiece he had created and called "The Agony of Man." [Note: the art was Future Primitive by Steel Neal. The piece survives today.] I had heard that this fellow did not consider himself to be a "real" artist, and he was just building something to burn, in the spirit of the festival. I admit this is hearsay, but I understand that seeing how his work affected attendees at the festival changed his perception of himself as an artist, and of this work. Perhaps it should not be burned after all.

The Vegematic wheels into position directly in front of the 20-foot high wood and metal sculpture. Mason is revving the the drill-motor as if it were a race car. The ominous whine it omits is the cue for Chicken John on the bullhorn. "Step aside!" he warns the bystanders.

Three of the four people who were seated in the path of the fire cannon were safely behind it in about two seconds after that warning. One was not. The artist, rising slowly from his seat before the campfire, folds his arms and shakes his head to tell the confronting horde that he will not step aside and allow his work to be destroyed by them.

Chicken John repeats his instructions, more insistently now. Jim releases a small blast of fire, sort of a warning shot to indicate the verity of his intention. All of a sudden I find myself overcome with emotions of all kinds flooding in from the darkest corners of my psyche.

"What is going on here?" I ponder. "What am I doing here?" Is this newly transformed artist ready to die ablaze to protect his work? Will these "performers" make good on their threat? What is really being played out here? I am worried about the behavior of this mob. If the Vegematic does not destroy this thing, will the crowd accept that, or will they take control of the machine and destroy it themselves?

All these questions and not an answer in sight. I knew though, that I was engaged in direct interaction with some of the ugliest aspects of our human nature, and I was afraid. I did not know exactly where the line was to be drawn on the violent destruction of property (people?), and I knew that the behavior of the mob was real and based on suspension of disbelief. The most frightening aspect of this scene is a crowd being whipped into an increasingly destructive mood. A crowd for whom all of this is not performance, but immersive reality.

My mind was reeling with "what-ifs." What if they actually injured this man? What if the uncivilized mob overpowered the rational "audience?" What would I do? What could I do? Am I responsible for this by simply being here? Again, the answers are more elusive, yet I am unable to simply turn away.

It must have been only a few seconds, but they were some of the tensest I've ever felt, as the showdown reached its climax. The artist is still standing his ground, and finally the Vegematic disengages and begins to move on. This failure to destroy the work and the man sends a wave of visible (and audible) discontent through the mob...and a new bubble of fear to my chest.

Even as I am questioning my reasons for following this spectacle, I know I have to continue. This has now become much more than performance art with fire. This is the confrontation of good and evil in a cosmic allegory, revealing the truth of our nature in the process of unfolding before me.

I notice that we've been on this destructive quest for nearly an hour, the steadily growing crowd around the Vegematic cheering madly as all manner of flammable material meets its end before the machine. Shelter structures, miscellaneous sculptures and other property have become fuel for the flames. Each time Chicken John would shout "step aside!" (and eventually the mob joined-in on this chant), then Jim would rev the motor and let the jet-propelled fire out into the night.

Inevitably, the field of available targets had just about been exhausted. That is, all but one very big one. We are now headed straight for the festival's main stage. This large A-frame structure had been host to numerous music and dance performances over the course of the festival, and in the hours following the burn, it was home to the DJ's spinning techno and trance rhythms for the "community dance" (spelled r-a-v-e). The tool of devastation on wheels cut a path through the crowd of dancers to a position directly in front of the DJ console on stage. The surrealism of this vision has me cursing the fact that I am out of film.

As if to underscore the difference in mindset between the trance-dancers and the mob, instead of issuing his usual warning, Chicken John jumps onstage and insists to the DJ, "Play some Led Zeppelin!" The Vegematic lets out a motorized groan and a flaming belch in response. The overgrown drill-bit nose is now dripping gasoline in flames like the devil with a wet cold. A scene from Hieronymous Bosch's painting of "Hell" flashes across my mind.

The DJ is Goa Gil, and perhaps due to his nature, or perhaps the fact that he has come all the way from India, he is hardly reacting to the implied threat. In fact, he is turning up the volume in peaceful defiance of the metal invasion in front of him. With all due respect for the views of others, I've had my doubts about the professed spiritual nature of these dances. I do however, believe that intent is well more than half of the journey. I wondered if these frenetic dancing kids knew how their faith was about to be tested.

I didn't have to wait long to find out… The crew of the machine is tilting the flamethrower's barrel up at the console. Gil is staring down the 12-foot barrel of this jet powered char-broiler. I had to remind myself that this is theatre, or is it? I'm still not sure. "Burn it!" the mob chants, "Burn THEM!" in a mantra of destructive abandon that causes me to feel a mix of shame and fear and apprehension (fuel for enlightenment).

Like an opposing pacifist army, the ravers are standing their ground, some shouting in defiance of the threat, some in disbelief that this could really be happening. Chicken John, like the demented circus ringmaster that he is, issues his now-familiar warning over the bullhorn. We seem to have traveled back centuries in time. I don't remember ever feeling farther from home than this.

For only the second time among at least a dozen confrontations, the Vegematic is backing down, leading one to feel that there may indeed be hope for these humans, and perhaps there is something that purifies and bonds us together in the music and dance.

Final Showdown

This story is not quite over. There is one more challenge that we've been waiting to see the Vegematic meet. Jim had envisioned this encounter from the start, and has gone to great expense and effort to make it real. He has created a 15-foot high ball of solid ice in the middle of what is known as Black Rock City. Using a giant Fiberglas mold, Styrofoam and hay bales for insulation, a refrigeration unit had been employed onsite for days to freeze water that was poured into the mold. On Saturday (one full day prior to this encounter), the casing was removed and the glory of this work was revealed.

There it stood, in utter defiance of the desert heat and all the fire that was to surround it over the next 24 hours. A snowball in hell. I was surprised at how little it had melted in the day's sun, but was certain that a giant ice ball would become a giant puddle after the onslaught of the Vegematic's fire gun and drill. The drama continued to unfold.

The nose of the Vegematic is aimed for the center of the frozen sphere. It will bury its drilling blade in the outer surface of the ball. It will then drill its way into the center of the ice. From there, the flamethrower's power will be maximized, melting the chilly sculpture from the inside out.

The crowd is larger than ever, and shouting for violence against the target. As far as I can tell, there are no cheerleaders for the ice. As the monster machine moves into place against the ice, the familiar sound of the motor is drowned by mob-noise. The drill turns, but the ice is apparently tougher than expected. Jim resorts to using the fire to soften her up. Whoosh, whoosh, again and again the fire spews forward, the drill bit revolves and the battle of the elements plays itself out. This continues for some time, until the remaining fuel is spent.

The Morning After

The ultimate truth of this journey (internal and external) was evident the next morning for all to see. In a way, I half-expected to return here and find no evidence of the previous night's experience whatsoever. Instead, right where we left it during our night of fire was the Vegematic, it's rusting drill-nose buried just a few inches in the ice ball, out of fuel and out of luck.

I'm not sure whether the great truth I was seeking was actually embodied in this tableau, but I was satisfied with the outcome. It's easy to make poetic comparisons about fire and ice, but for me the intensity of the experience came from those unanswerable questions and what they told me about myself and my fellow man. Something ugly. Something beautiful. I am grateful for the mirror.

The ice had won - this time. Next time, who knows?

Trial by Fire: A Burning Man Experience by Robert B. Gelman

Trial by Fire

Labor Day Weekend 1997

Final Showdown

The Morning After

Trial
by Fire