art cars are stupid

Ivy · Post by **Ivy** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:34 pm

I'm curious...it appears that a lot of the responses on this topic are from people without art cars...My experience directly with art cars is limited at best (mainly riding and admiring).
How do people with art cars feel about this? I almost feel like I'm volunteering them to be part of some sort of vigilante task force without even hearing what they have to say.

que.f.o. · Post by **que.f.o.** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 9:59 pm

My campmates and I got quite disgusted by the amount of vehicles driving by without any apparent socially redeeming artistic value. By Wednesday the yells of "Not Art" could be heard coming from the camp on a frequent basis. We're considering making "Not Art" stickers to apply to vehicles in 2004.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 10:12 pm

I've been under the impression that killing or maiming someone, or setting fire to your camp, was a certain way to effect radical policy changes at Burning Man, but I could be wrong.

III · Post by **III** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 10:48 pm

>certain way to effect radical policy changes

only in that they are a precursor to legal action, which is as a mouse unto the llc's elephant...

quiet girl · Post by **quiet girl** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:41 pm

...I thought about getting a car cover from Pep Boys or one of those places and decorating that.

I figured that I could cut out a place for the windows and then sew large quilt squares onto it or get some fur or other strange fabric to make my car look less like a boring, undecorated car while I'm working. Then I could just stuff the whole thing in the trunk before diving for for tools and other crap.

Maybe I'll get to it this year...heh.

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 3:27 pm

Badger wrote:
Maybe I'm ignorant, but about the rangers, DPW, etc vehicles: I personally don't care if those are decorated or not (some people will probably disagree with this) but couldn't they have a visible sticker or licesne of some sort so as to be identified?
Ivy,

This (staff sticker thing) was done last year with some degree of effectiveness. It had its shortcomings but will definitely be done again next year. I agree with your take on not decorating staff carts, etc. Someone either here or in another similar folder was whining pretty loudly about staff not decorating their vehicles and how <sniff, sniff> awful it was that it went against the idea of <sniff> what art cars should be - or something resembling that line of thought... What the poster failed to consider is that when most of the playa volunteers hit BRC - usually just before the event - that they have little time to set up camp, get organized and then start the work of putting the City together. I'm sure this is the case with DPW, greeters and especially Rangers. Every Ranger I know that arrived early had little time to consider doing anything other than getting ready for the crush of people come Monday morning.

Ivy, Badger
just want to follow up on this.
I think that some of the vehicles on-playa ARE service vehicles and not art cars. Therefore, they should not be required to be art cars and if the art car in anyway interferes with functionality, then it's a big potential problem. (I managed to state it more clearly here than in that thread Badger mentioned.) Quiet girl--if you choose to make your DPW car function in an art car way too, great. I love the quilt idea. But I think that we should be clear that there are vehicles that have a legitemate reason to be on playa without being art. For instance, if JotS and the watertenders had to be art cars, we'd be taking something too far. Of course they are contractors. We'd have to pay more to make it worth their while to do that.
My truck, Tania, has been up there the past two years, with door seals only, being a medical squad car. I resist any change to her structure that is going to make her primary duties more difficult. I wasn't always with her, but Squad One was at a number of injury and od scenes, often the first medic to reach the scene and this includes some of the helicoptor evacuations. She done good work. She's an ugly old bear, and next year we're going to have to do some sort of cover-up of her Desert Storm camo paint job (real army issue), because LEO is getting poofy about it, but rest assured, whatever fix we do is not likely to bring her to art car standards. I have no problem limiting her driving to when we are on duty for ESD--that is an absolutely reasonable rule.

I've been mulling over the art car thing on and off. Would bringing in the city closer to the man make any difference? Saying it's a ped/bike city is one thing, laying it out so that walking and bike riding make more sence than driving is a more effective meathod of keeping it that way than heavy rules and enforcement. Ped/bike cities should be compact, and may need public transit. BRC doesn't really qualify.

In fact, it's just as dependent on the car and the interstate as any other post WWII suburb. I don't see a practical way to change that, but as things are cars, art or not, define BRC in a big way.

Thanks to the three of you for bringing up an important side to the issue.

III · Post by **III** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 3:45 pm

>limiting her driving to when we are on duty for ESD--that is an absolutely reasonable rule.

ayup. it may be more difficult to enforce, (especially in other cases), but it's a very reasonable rule.

>Saying it's a ped/bike city is one thing, laying it out so that walking and bike riding make more sence than driving is a more effective meathod of keeping it that way than heavy rules and enforcement. Ped/bike cities should be compact, and may need public transit. BRC doesn't really qualify.

nice call.

i think you're spot on in this assessment, and i think *that's* what's bothered me about the golf carts for so many years: all the staff who use them don't have to experience the city the same way they expect everyone else to, and don't realize that despite the pretty looking maps and the spiffy view from first camp that it just doesn't deliver what's printed on the label...

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 4:06 pm

Purple Koosh Said:

We registered almost 600 cars this year, and making the standards tougher is the only alternative we can see to having to actually limit the number of available licenses. And if we don't bring the numbers down voluntarily, we run the risk of having BLM setting a cap within the terms of the land use permit - having art cars on the playa at all was a compromise they agreed to grudgingly in the first place.

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... c&start=15

Who thinks 600 art cars is too many?

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 4:25 pm

600 art cars is one for every 50 participants.

More than enough in a dense urban neighborhood with a central transit system.

How does that work in BRC terms if everyone wanted to get out to the trash fence?

(Not that I'm trying to contradict you, Chai Guy, I'm still working on the analysis from an urban planning perspective.)

Cariapata · Post by **Cariapata** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 4:36 pm

But there is no central transit system and if you wanted to go out to the trash fence and the end of the wholly other you have 2 reasonable choices. Bike, or hot foot it. Very few of the art cars I saw functioned as mass transit type vehicles, most of what I saw looked like single occupant projects or mobile private parties or party barges on wheels.

I know art is in the eye of the beholder but some of the stuff I saw out there were pathetic excuses for art cars, no matter how far you stretch the definition. Some of the stuff looked like rolling jalopies with a string of Christmas lights on it to gussy it up.

I'm beginning to think the DMV needs some new eyes working over there to really critique what gets selected for a license. That might be controversial and don't start with the: Their just volunteers stuff. Be subjective and critical; if it's shit, call it shit. A little more courage / backbone would go along ways towards resolving this issue.

(I'll ignore that sound of thunder in the distance....from the lighting strikes I know are coming my way).

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:09 pm

Cariapata wrote:But there is no central transit system and if you wanted to go out to the trash fence and the end of the wholly other you have 2 reasonable choices. Bike, or hot foot it. Very few of the art cars I saw functioned as mass transit type vehicles, most of what I saw looked like single occupant projects or mobile private parties or party barges on wheels.

I'm not actually calling for art cars to be mass transit vehicles. I'm trying to work with how the layout of the city is in contradiction with the stated ideal of a ped/bike city. Right now, I'm trolling the main site, trying to find something on the distances. So far I've found this:
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburning ... rowth.html
which is interesting, but not what I need right now. Another question--what is the linear milage you'd walk (or bike) if you were to start at 2:00 o'clock, walk the Esplande, walk up 10:00 one block, walk back to 2:00 and so on until the Abyss? That's seeing "the entire city" and ignoring the artwork. And what if you didn't feel complete just peering up the radials and wanted to walk up them as well? I get shin splints just thinking about it.

Bicycles are not merely a convenience in Black Rock City, they have become a necessity. Large artworks now fill a space that extends one mile outward from our settlement. The streets that ring our city are more than two miles long! If you wish to avoid sunstroke and hope to participate in at least some significant part of the activities at Burning Man, we strongly urge you to bring a bicycle . . .

from
http://www.burningman.com/preparation/e ... unity.html

I'm right back at BRC is really bigger than a ped/bike city. This means that art cars will continue to be a problem--the payoff of being able to drive is too big.

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:19 pm

I'm right back at BRC is really bigger than a ped/bike city

.

If it's not it's certainly close to being a little too big to simply navigate on foot.

This means that art cars will continue to be a problem--the payoff of being able to drive is too big

.

Huh? I've been going to BM for 6 years. In that time I have only ridden on one, maybe two art cars. Both times I was trying to get somewhere but had to abandon my mission because art cars don't "go" anywhere, they drive around and around with no rhyme or reason. They are party barges, not means of transportation (except maybe for their owners/operators).

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:26 pm

Chai Guy wrote: They are party barges, not means of transportation (except maybe for their owners/operators).

Exactly. That creates a reason to make an "art" car.

To summarize. The size of the city itself makes it inconvenient as a ped/bike city. The effort of spending a few dollars and hours painting and stringing lights on a car is much less than walking or biking those distances all week--for a substantial number of people. (I'd add the altitude and heat as contributing factors.) This means that the DMV and Rangers will continue to have trouble creating and enforcing rules that limit art cars speed, movement, numbers, ect. The incentive to cheat is too much. Especially when you consider those wide open vistas they talk about in the planning section. I can say from personal experience that there's a siren call for you to drive faster than 5 MPH. So the choices are to change the city plan to make it compact or to put up with the art cars, the enforcement, and the tension between them.

If art cars were hidiously inconvient what you'd see is good art cars, the ones with 100s of hours of work made by obsessives.

I'm just saying.

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:34 pm

Ah, I see (I think). So you believe that maybe part of the solution is some kind of transit system?

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:43 pm

I'm not sure what the solution would be. And I wonder what a transit system created and staffed by volenteers would be. What I'm saying (and here I'd like to say that Chai Guy posted to my first sentence while I was adding the rest in edit, so if the continuity seems off, that's why) is that the planning and lay out of the city dictate how people travel around it. People will want art cars to go from 3:00 to 9:00 o'clock plazas, because that's a long way to hoof it. Telling them that they should hoof it is nice, but it's sort of like telling them not to commit adultry. Some people just aint gonna hear.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 5:49 pm

...maybe part of the solution is some kind of transit system?

Boy, that's a can of worms. Right up there with providing trash pick up and disposal for everyone.

I just don't see that non-essential vehicular transport is necessary. I'm even less inclined to support licensing bar cars that end up being used for the exclsuve use of a particular camp.

Actually, I really like the idea that Larry floated yesterday during the town hall meeting wherein he suggested that human powered (ie pushed/pulled) vehicles should be encouraged.

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:03 pm

I wasn't really suggesting that Burning Man LLC provide a form of mass transit. I was asking if some kind of mass transit system would be beneficial to the city and it's citizens and if so, would utilizing art cars in that system be viable. (i.e. have a series of bus stops where people could wait for the next ride across the playa, to the man, to the airport etc.)

III · Post by **III** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:32 pm

>transit system

one of my never to happen dream projects that i mighta done if i had won the lottery was to lay in a set of railroad tracks all around the city, and set up a pair of trains with a bunch of open wagons to trundle around the city on a continual basis at about 5 mph. that's slow enough that you can hop on and off pretty easily, and get out of the way, but fast enough to circumnavigate the whole shebang in about an hour, or something of that magnitude. it'd let you get from one district to the next pretty easily.

then, on sunday night, i'd set em up pointing opposite directions at the entry road, load em up with pyro, and launch em full throttle to intersect each other out beyond where the man used to be. would finally make all those "if train A leaves center camp at 8:30 going 90 mph..." problems worthwhile...

Ivy · Post by **Ivy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:54 pm

Wow, you guys, i never even stopped to consider the whole "is BRCreally a more pedestrian city where cars would be superflous" thing. I think it might be becuasve I've lived in LA my whole life, where cars are like second nature. it never even crossed my mind NOT to have them.

That said, while I'm not sure making people go out of their way is necessarily a way to encourge more "arty" art cars, I so think there's something to that.

This is toally my opinion, but I still feel that "art" comes first in "art car," becuase well, the art shuld come first. Art crs shouldn't really be designed as "hey, this is a cool way to cruise the playa." I would think an art car would stem from the idea of some sort of scupture that is either inherently mobile or has somesort of artistic effect by being mobile. It's probably not the best example, but the Contessa in 2002 springs to mind. It's one thing to get inspired to build a huge pirate ship--but part of the effect of the pirate ship was that it actually sailed the "sea." Anothiner one I thought of: the magic carpet (actually, i think there are several). If you get inspired to build a magic carpet, the effect of the artwork (the "magic" if you will) is lost if it never moves.
But the idea that "I'm gonna get a golf cart and put a giant shoe on top," well, that not moile inspiration, that's inspiration to justify mobility. And I think that's where a lot of the issues are.

Cariapata · Post by **Cariapata** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:55 pm

Excuse me, I'm trying to pick myself off the floor and type at the same time! Trey, that last post was fantastic. I hated those train problems!

III · Post by **III** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 7:35 pm

that's kind of the bottom of my list of never to happen projects.

top of the list is the phoenix, followed by the juggernaut, the week of men. right after the trains is the lake of fire. all of them involve a dollar cost somewhere between $1e5 and $1e6

most of them are fairly lnt-averse, and would require fair amounts of guerilla action to pull off, since they're shoe ins for not getting approved for proper placement.

that's why they're all on the never gonna happen list. but they're good plans, all of em,

precipitate · Post by **precipitate** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 7:48 pm

Wasn't there a non-art-car disabling device, too?

III · Post by **III** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 8:09 pm

there was the non-artcar conversion program. and this is the time of year to go shopping for it. getchyerself a case of spray snow (the kind you use to decorate windows) and when you see a non art car driving around on the playa, accessorize it with drawings of your choice.

that, however, is entirely budgetable and feasible, so it doesn't make the list.

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 8:21 pm

I've had a registered art car on the playa three of my five years, and though I understand the concept of having art cars used to in effect run down non-art cars to see waht is up, it is somethng I would myself not do, formally. I understand it in that there is an inherent capability to do so, (over the pedestrain, and possibly the bicyclist). It is not a case so much though of hey, it is an art car problem, let them fix it, sort of thing ....though certainly it is a priviledge to do so..... remember foremost though that the offenders of not-being-an-art-car are NOT art cars.

It would be sort of like saying, "Hey, that is not art! THIS is art!" to someone for an organized art car patrol OF art cars to be formed. Might come off as elitist? If someone were operating anything too fast, I'd definately try to catch up & slow them down from my art car, but have done so, come to think of it, only from my bike or when at camp.. maybe am more aware of others speed then?. However, the proper place for a query about registering an art car is not when you have to catch them. It seems to me then that it is not a DMV issue so much as a community policing measure.. and the community definately is eager to slow speeders down.. it is just plain freaking stupid to speed out there. Really freaking stupid. Also eager to get see what is up with the cardboard sign & some coat hangers on a golf cart, etc. Like Ivy said, (paraphrased) is it art that is mobile or just an excuse to not walk? A few posters here & elsewhere have complained that the DMV did NOT issue them a permit..... & it would hurt to hear that your effort (if considerable) was so named "not art", but holy shit! there was some pretty freaking obvious crapola-for-effort riding around out there.

Past my camp, we had some guy in an off-white Mercedes sedan crusing at 25+mph on 3:00 several times. Once our neighborhood was able to SLOW him down (but not to a stop) & he claimed it was a medical emergency.. with the "patient" sitting on the trunk drinking wine. Lots of stuff like that, mostly early on.

I'm not saying ice picks to tires & a mob mentality is the ticket, but there is certainly that as an option. Maybe an educational primer to the non-art car public (especially) to look for an art car sticker, and if there is not one....

Some of the worst speeding I did see was from what I'd assumed were registered art cars. Nicely made, etc, but someone was driving too fast. 50mph on the open playa. Mine tops out at about ten or i'da DEFINATELY lopped off their valve stems when they stopped. AS THEY WATCHED.

precipitate · Post by **precipitate** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 8:36 pm

Re: disabling device, I was referring to the giant magnet.

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 9:06 pm

I had not meant to say that having an art car-powered art car patrol is a bad thing. It would definately be a good thing. Anything would be an improvement.

Mine is too slow to run down speeders and I would not be comfortable in assaying quailty, is why I may have come off that way (yes, i did) above.

Probably not bringing it/them this year anyways. Need room for GIANT SCROTAL sacs, creatures etc. plus driving it makes me a spectacle when I'd most often rather be a spectator.

sigh.

As my freind Gina signed off to me the other day:
Life is hard, pack a lunch

III · Post by **III** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 9:07 pm

oh yeah - the car sucker.

that's a good one.

heh.

most piercings are stainless, or some non-ferrous metal, right?

double heh...

(i think it could actually happen, if i can get skillet and badger to work together...)

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:07 pm

Fairness is important.
Deliberated vigilantism rather than mob freaking mentality is important.

Some one is driving anything too fast, stop them.
That is foremost.

Is it then "your" duty to see if anyone else in the car feels like driving slower, or should you maybe ackowledge that they (the passenger-would-be-driver) did not slow the driver down?!

There is the argument that it is the driver, not the car/ the trigger-man not the gun.... but holy fuck! This is a "situation" here, with someones child maybe gonna get squished. That is really really really ugly bad shit.

Yes, they are gonna seem like "nice people", and they are. But I'm thnking that maybe the standing thing should be to tell them to park it til morning. Yes, we know, but park it til morning. Yes, we know but park it til mnorning.

Or get four flats NOW.

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:17 pm

Some one is driving anything too fast, stop them.
That is foremost.

And that is the most difficult part. It's been my experience that these art car yahoos don't respond to well to "HEY ASSHOLE, SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!"

Or maybe it's just that they can't hear me when they're going 25 mph down the esplanade with their tow-behind diesel generator pumping out 100,000 watts of power so they can bump the latest trance CD from Germany.

Ok, so new tactic, let me think....

Ok, I got it

1.Make sign that says "FREE BEER FOR ART CAR DRIVERS"
2.wait for art car to approach.
3.Deploy spike strip
4.run

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:36 pm

I agree 99%, Chai Guy!

Except that you will not have to run! YIPPEEE!!!!

If you get the MOTHER FUCKER to stop,
& BRCitizens know they are empowered.......

how many people withing eyesight of what you just saw
saw the same thing.. not just "over 5mph", but too freaking fast.

if all motorized vehicular traffic goers are subject to being way-laid for one day for going too fast (or get four flats if they try to move), word would get around quickly.

it's not like one day without a car is gonna kill em, but it might kill you. let em push it back to camp. whatever. fuck. take yer freaking valuables. fuck. yer water? gee! that is a toughie! how you gonna get yer water back to camp?! see, mine is not SPINNING AROUND ON THE PLAYA at 30MPH so i really cannot commiserate with you.

when i said it might crunch a child? i meant up to 118 years old (anything after the 472nd tri-mester is a gimmee). all of you mofos are someones child.

art cars are stupid

Art/Not Art

about 2 years ago...

speeders, one strike valve stems out

belching vodka out my ass.. can you tell i am drunk, yet?