Recent Posts
Shade Structures at Burning Man
This post documents the best shade structure that I've seen or used at the desert Burning Man event. Over the years, I've used a geodesic dome supporting silver shade cloth and cotton tarps, various frame tents covered with white, opaque PVC fabric, … [Read More...]
Burning Man 2024 Project: Saccadia
Persistence (2023), which is the basis for Saccadia. Photoshop combination of a still photograph and a panned photograph by Joe Lakeman. Saccadia promotes an unfamiliar visual perspective and prods people to help those around them to see it. As an … [Read More...]
Persistence at Burning Man 2023
Persistence (2023) at Burning Man. Photoshop combination of a still photograph and a panned photograph by Joe Lakeman. In 1980, around the time that I graduated from high school and entered college, Bill Bell, then in his early 50s, invented a new kind of … [Read More...]
Imbalance at Burning Man 2022
I constructed Imbalance by attaching pre-painted plywood panels to a 2x4 frame. Since the entire piece weighs too much for me to lift, I assembled it on the trailer. Of course that meant that I'd need a crew to lift the already-assembled piece off of the … [Read More...]
Burning Man 2022 Project
Every second about four people are born and two people die. Imbalance viscerally reveals human population growth through digital counters that track worldwide births and deaths since the gate opened. By the end of the week, Imbalance will report about … [Read More...]
The Death Counters of Mortorious
This post is for the nerds. Do you like math? Mortorious used several digital “death counters” to show the estimated number of deaths that occurred somewhere in the United States by a various causes during Burning Man 2019. Since we wanted each of the death … [Read More...]
Burning Man 20xx Project
Update: April 11, 2020. With yesterday's announcement that Black Rock City 2020 has been cancelled, work on this project has been suspended. Last year's Burning Man project was a bit—morbid. Mortorious (2019) dealt with death, and so I thought that I'd do … [Read More...]
Mortorious at Burning Man 2019
Many thanks to Mortorious contributors Matt Newton, Megan Boivin, Natalia Baetz, Rebecca Rashkin, Stacy Standal, Tiffany Hollis, and Victoria Hollis! Also, many thanks to Jordan Layman, from whom we rented space during August at Idea Fab Labs, Santa Cruz. … [Read More...]
Burning Man 2019 Project
If you knew the likely cause of your death, what would you do? Mortorious counts the number of deaths in the United States, by cause, from the opening of the Gate for Burning Man 2019. Digital counters reveal mortality statistics along with 15 “cause-of-death” … [Read More...]
The Final Tally
Mike Case and I installed Bluster on August 25 at 7:00 pm. Then on September 3 at 10:00 am, 8 days and 15 hours later, I took the installation down. During that time, the column of air that blew by was 8,148,257 feet long. The top wind speed recorded was 38.5 … [Read More...]
Bluster’s Comment Book
At Burning Man I mounted a small twin-wire bound notebook on Bluster along with a Sharpie. Participants completely filled the notebook. Here is a PDF scan of its contents: Bluster Comment Book … [Read More...]
Bluster’s Lamppost
Bluster's lamppost is much taller than I had imagined! I'm very happy that I bought this instead of a short residential lampost from Home Depot. And buying a lamppost was much smarter than trying to build one. Update after Burning Man 2018: Here it is on … [Read More...]
Cupcake Cafe 2018 Milestones
Here's what's left to prepare for Burning Man 2018. Last update: August 24, 2018. 16-foot Trailer I bought a new trailer to dedicate to Burning Man events. In the past I've used a 10-foot trailer, but because I use that trailer for other purposes, much … [Read More...]
Bluster’s Milestones
A simple project always looks more daunting after one lists its detailed milestones. Last update: August 22, 2018. And it's done! Anemometer I'm using a modified Adafruit Anemometer to sense the wind speed. The "zero-MPH" value of the original … [Read More...]
