Burning Man is a time and place that we artists create to experiment the Next and get our mind shifted. I am amazed that even after 11 years of taking the journey to the desert, I still become transformed and find myself in awe.
This year I cruised multiple times to the outskirts of the city, looking for silence, which is the most necessary atmosphere for the New to emerge. Dear friend and inspiring artist Ain Talalaev has put it beautifully: “All new arises in periphery” – referring to our conversation about Estonian art at that time. This year at Burning Man my mind was lifted by a group of musicians called Mardeleva. I had had a luck to hear them months before in their natural habitat – Tulum and I knew at the burn that it’s the place and time to be – a decision to skip all the other possibilities and bike to the last street of Black Rock City.
There’s a term that is often referred to architecture and place-making and it was brought to highlight in modern architectural theory by Christian Norberg-Schulz – genius loci (the spirit of a place). Understanding the genius loci, an architect would ask instead of “What I want to build here?”, but “What kind of building wants to be here?”. Listening Mardeleva playing live, I got a sense that this is it…the intimacy and love between performers and audience, the depth of sounds, the playfulness, as well as serious quality, acoustic instruments combined with electronic sounds, immediacy – these are the tunes that are here now to expand Next, but they need silence (as much as it is possible in our town of 80 000 creative beings). I don’t know yet how (by not limiting everyone’s right for radical expression and leaving room for necessary amateur experimentations), but the noise of everyone playing over everyone’s speakers is not sustainable in the evolution of waking up.
Maybe keeping 2 o’clock side completely free from bigger sound camps like it is already free from big sound cars?
Don’t get me wrong – I love to get up at 5 AM for the sunrise sets with bumping beats and crazy dancing, but I also love having a choice…
What are YOUR thoughts on that?