Note: If you decide that you'd like to return to one of the rings to which this ring belongs, itself, just go to the navbar for this ring on any member site and click on the link marked "rings" and you'll get right back to the code for your ring.

This page, as you might have noticed, has been largely mirrored on an update blog which has been set up for this ring. You can subscribe to that blog in order to follow developments on this ring through Feedburner, by using the link marked "Email Subscriptions." or, if you are a Tumblr user, by following this blog with the button Tumblr provides. Should this site be running slowly, perhaps because the load on my provider's server is unusually heavy, today, you can use the copy of the page on the blog, which might be running more quickly. The same code is present on all versions of the ring homepage, and the different versions interlink, so if you do go wandering off, you should be able to find your way back to your ring (or, indeed, even to this post) without difficulty when you're done.

Perhaps I should start by saying what this ring will not be about, and firmly asserting that, yes, I'm serious. This ring is not for critiquing or praising the management or culture of Burning Man, or any Burning Man like event ("burn"). There are places for that sort of thing, and no, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with discussing the merits of an event, but when one doesn't put any boundaries on that sort of discussion, it has a way of squeezing out all other discussion. For much the same reason, this ring will not be about politics or any other sort of drama, other than the theatrical kind.

This ring will be about art at Burning Man, exclusive of dance or of anything substantially connected to dance. No, there's nothing inherently wrong with spinning records and dancing, but that's something that we can all do at home, for very little money, at tiresomely many places, and when that one activity seems to be driving all others out of Black Rock City, yes, I think there's something very wrong with that. No, I'm not interested in wasting my time arguing the point with somebody. This is how it's going to be, and those who are displeased with this thought are free to start their own rings.

The emphasis in the art we see here should be on that which is interactive, that which requires the viewer's active participation in order to be fully experienced which, yes, would exclude Pepe Ozan's much praised and often condemned opera. No endorsement of that condemnation should be seen in the fact that I mention it - to be slammed by a large number of Burners online seems to come with the territory when one gains any kind of visibility in Burnerdom, and a good time seems to have been had by many, but from what I have heard, that fourth wall would seem to have been there, unambiguously dividing the audience from the cast, taking the performance out of the realm of interactive theatre. Whatever community was happening as a result of that piece would have happened in rehearsal; during such a performance, community is the one thing that would have been put on hold.

One might see Burning as an American cultural response to the widespread urban anomie of the late 20th century that arose as the massive, corporate induced population movements destroyed what had been stable, established communities, leaving each to wonder who on earth his neighbors were, and what on earth he might say to these people should be ever meet them. With no common background between them, the conversations that resulted could be little more than lengthy awkward silences enlivened by little other than a passionate, mutual desire to escape - as some would have said, a "less than nothing" social scene. Thus the importance of interactivity - the giant pink rubber panda with sparks shooting out of its eye sockets that a camp creates isn't important, in and of itself; the conversations that the camp members find themselves having, quite naturally, in the course of creating whatever they will create, which the visitors find themselves drawn into - that's what's important, and that's why we break the fourth wall. So people can walk away with stories and memories about what they did, as they left some of their less essential expectations behind, feeling a little more alive for having done so.

Doing the same dumb stuff one did, or could easily do at home isn't going to give one that little push out of the rut that a lifetime of crossing the same conceptual terrain over and over can leave one digging for oneself. One does that by challenging oneself creatively, by trying to be a little more than one has been in the past. So, no hug camps, but if the zombies of some years back have a site? I hope they'll submit it. Sculptures that one can climb, collaborative storytelling, mad science exhibitions, artist's workshops ... these would be good.

Whether or not they'll be offered has yet to be seen, but until then, I'll toss out a few offerings of my own, just to get the ring started. This page is part of the Republic of Whoo, until I come up with a better name for the site.