SFist Burns Burning Man:

Smokler on August 25, 2005

So SFist is all hating on Burning Man. A few of the comments took offense but most seem to agree with their assertion that

Really, is there that much of a difference between Burning Man and Spring Break? All it is a bunch of (mainly) kids going somewhere warm to party and get laid. The only difference is that while Spring Break is made up of meathead frat boys from the Midwest and airhead sorority girls from the South, Burning Man is made up of frustrated liberal art majors and artist types who have to turn it into something that’s just so important and so much better than what mere mortals do so they can make themselves feel that they’re just so much more important and so much better than anyone else.

I’m a little surprised the Burning faithful haven’t risen up in protest. The whole dang festival was born here. Maybe they’ve heard it all before. Or maybe (and I could just be suspicious), the folks who scream loudest about the values of the Playa aren’t the ones that read SFist?

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid and I have talked some about this. In the early ’90s (before my time, right in the middle of his), the San Francisco undergroud art scene and embryonic web community were many of the same people. The hacker ethic fueled not only obvious geek/artist hybrids like the Survival Research Labs but the early Well discussion boards and the founding of Wired Magazine are examples of the same art/technology crosspollination. The dot com boom cleaved the two communities somewhat, with inflated rents displacing artist spaces and the glut of media and cultural opportunities necessitating the need for more obvious and diligent marketing of creative work. When I arrived in 2000, it was quite common to meet a writer with a half-dozen best selling books who didn’t see the need for a web site or think the Internet was all that big a deal.

Things have been turning around and I couldn’t be happier. I love the web and the arts with equal ferocity and believe in celebrating creativity no matter in which half of the brain it begins. It’s not silly but potentially self-destructive to say that artists should fear technology or technologists don’t get true creativity. All of our work can’t help but be enriched by exposure to modes of creation unfamiliar to ours.

I think the return of Webzine could be huge, ushering in a new arts era for San Francisco where technology is seen as ann instrument of artistic endeavor instead of a necessar evil. Here’s hoping…

Reader interactions

10 Replies to “SFist Burns Burning Man:”

  1. ed August 26, 2005 at 12:43 pm

    I’m hoping to be at Webzine myself. I hope in light of recent efforts to shamelessly commercialize almost every aspect of the Web, that some trace of the early drive (“I like what I’m doing and can I support myself without compromising the message”) that marked previous Webzine gatherings will be here.

  2. ed August 26, 2005 at 12:43 pm

    I’m hoping to be at Webzine myself. I hope in light of recent efforts to shamelessly commercialize almost every aspect of the Web, that some trace of the early drive (“I like what I’m doing and can I support myself without compromising the message”) that marked previous Webzine gatherings will be here.

  3. Eddie Codel August 26, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    We certainly are trying to make Webzine a platform for people to share, learn, create and to highlight artists who are doing interesting things with technology. I think artists that use technology already know that it’s an instrument. I’m hoping we can turn more people on and help them channel their inner artistic self. Very much looking fwd to next month!

  4. Eddie Codel August 26, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    We certainly are trying to make Webzine a platform for people to share, learn, create and to highlight artists who are doing interesting things with technology. I think artists that use technology already know that it’s an instrument. I’m hoping we can turn more people on and help them channel their inner artistic self. Very much looking fwd to next month!

  5. Jackson West August 26, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    Well, actually, we were trying to present both perspectives. You’ll note that we followed up with a rave the next day. The idea being that everyone has personal feelings RE: Burning Man and we wanted to have both sides of the story served. We also didn’t want anyone to get cooties, which I think is a service to burners if ever there was one.

  6. Jackson West August 26, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    Well, actually, we were trying to present both perspectives. You’ll note that we followed up with a rave the next day. The idea being that everyone has personal feelings RE: Burning Man and we wanted to have both sides of the story served. We also didn’t want anyone to get cooties, which I think is a service to burners if ever there was one.

Leave a Reply