Suggestions for BMORG for 2005

[glam_daddy]

Excellent Idea! And this would look way cool no matter where you are on the Playa (and functional also!). I am looking for a worthy "stationary" Art project to replace my Mutated vehicle (which has blown up twice now on the highway). I am willing to help you. I even have a bunch of ELwire (1-2k feet) and invertors. What about posts/uprights? Would the signs span the streets (over 30') or be to one side? Or maybe 100' or so out from Esplanade? Power? (solar would be nice)...thoughts? regards, Jafe

Cool. Good questions. I like the idea of having them above the street. As in the sign being an archway above the street. Prevents tampering. Harder to make quick fixes on the fly though. 100 feet into the playa is also a great idea.

Is el wire the answer? will the charge last all night? how did eyes of gawd power his piece? Im thinking we need large battery cells. many of them. maybe 1 for each sign/per night.

Or we could screw el wire all together (will el wire be visable enough from say 400 yards or so?) and we could use flourescent lights like we had with that piece back in 2001 where there were 4 changable letters all made up with flourescent light grids.....



blyslv -

I now have my sarcasm detector2.0 ™ turned on. Sorry about that......

[Ivy]

As in the sign being an archway above the street.

Aestetically, I like this idea. But keep in mind that ther might be tall things that need to get though (cranes, scaffolds, art cars a la La contessa)?

Not a crtitiscm, just a thought.

[glam_daddy]

Good point Ivy. Hadn't thought of that. Putting the signs to the side of a street might get esplinade camps in a huff because of the space. Setting them off into the playa a bit seems a safe bet.

[diane o'thirst]

Here's an idea:

Archway would be cool, but impractical, for the reasons Ivy suggested.

How about, instead of a sign that reads "7 o'clock" or whatever, have instead:

A big clockface, say 2+ feet in diameter, painted in contrasting colours, embellished with El wire, with clock hands indicating the corresponding time. Put it up on one pole on one side of the street, at a height of say 10 or 12 feet to avoid casual tampering?

I'd love to work on the project but I'm not in San Francisco and I just volunteered a project for my own camp that's going to be fairly time- and resource-intensive.

[dragonfly Jafe]

we could use flourescent lights like we had with that piece back in 2001 where there were 4 changable letters all made up with flourescent light grids.....

Also cool - I happen to have several dozen flourescent light fixtures that also did not get used this year (with bulbs). I was thinking of doing a pillar of flourescent light waaayy out on the playa, but this would be better.

[bradtem]

Not to rain on people eager to help and build such guides, but I think you understimate the difficulty of this. El-wire is not going to be that easy to see over long distances of the Playa, not to read a time number. I would suggest you do it with cold cathode tubes (which can be quite cheap, just a couple bucks per foot and an order of magnitude or more brighter than el-wire.)

However, you still would be pretty hard pressed to build landmarks more identifiable than the ones people already build. Like that giant Arrow at 4:30 and Esplanade. Or Center camp iteself. You really only need a couple of landmarks to get your clock bearings, and people already build them, you just have to learn which ones are there this year.

In past years there have been lasers at the cardinals (3,6,9,12) and people still got lost. Of course after the man burned they were gone. Indeed, the most common time people ask "what direction is what" is after the burning of the Man, when the playa is full of an orgy of fire that changes the landmarks, and the big landmark is gone.

But go for it if you want to, but consider more than el-wire.

As for power, I can tell you the cold cathodes foot-longs take about 4 watts. So you would need a decent battery to power a bunch of them, but 5 would run all night on an 18ah wheelchair battery. (About $18)

[dragonfly Jafe]

Excellent points, for sure. I'm not sure I agree with your ELwire comments (especially if it was layered flat-wise), but I agree about cold cathodes (have some of those also!).

The main appeal this idea has for me is not landmarks (I have no issues there, the city landmarks are always clear to me) but the clock/time aspect, and people interacting with the sweeping laserbeam clockhands. I think that would be the hardest part to impliment though. Where would it sit? If on the Man, after Saturday it would be no more. If in another spot, the "sweep" would be off. And the beam would have to "paint" a vertical line if it were to be seen as a line. And what about eye safety? The other lasers I have seen do not intersect with the ground. Is it possible to have a laser (or beam of light) that would be visible over the thousands of feet required yet not be harmful to people looking into it? And how much would such a device cost (and power to run?)

Definately some issues to resolve....

[Bob]

Clockwise, while I admire techie adaptations to playa conditions, they are better as applied to people's camps, costumes, and transportation and not the city street grid -- not only to prevent the DPW sign and/or spire shops from getting slammed with more work adapting to feeble low-budget blinkylight add-ons, but to preserve a sense of BRC as an appropriate analog -- a place where you can find your way, or get lost. Even with the street signs and blinky things down, there are enough traces to orient by. "Analog", at its root, it means "proportionate".

[glam_daddy]

Not to rain on people eager to help and build such guides, but I think you understimate the difficulty of this. El-wire is not going to be that easy to see over long distances of the Playa, not to read a time number. ....But go for it if you want to, but consider more than el-wire.

Not sure if you arent reading all the threads but we already addressed and have begun solving the issues you belatedly raised.... I suggested using neon lights like in the photo i provided that would have been hard of you to miss.

Thanks for the input though!

[retropsycho]

In past years there have been lasers at the cardinals (3,6,9,12) and people still got lost. Of course after the man burned they were gone. Indeed, the most common time people ask "what direction is what" is after the burning of the Man, when the playa is full of an orgy of fire that changes the landmarks, and the big landmark is gone.

Only the Main Processional road from Center Camp to the Man has four lantern hooks on each DPW spire. (The 3, 9, and 12 o'clock have two per spire).

Any archways at 5:30 and 6:30 need to be high enough for Lucifer, the Lamplighter truck to pass under. 100 feet into the playa works better.

[bradtem]

If you want to have a bright laser, you can probably make this happen without too much work, other than building a sturdy tower along the promenade to the man to mount it on.

One simple option. Have the laser pulse around the clock, spending 1 second at each hour, but turning off during the hours from 10 to 2 which are not streets. Thus 3 seconds off and 9 one second pulses at each street. Above heads, of course. Then people just wait for the pause, count, and then know their direction.

Or, to make it even easier, divert 2 beams at 2, 3 beams at 3 all the way to 10 beams (a bit faint) at 10, and do the same sweep.

Nothing to build at each radial that way, so even though the laser is work and money, you save doing tons of work at each radial.

[binaryuplink]

i have a shure fire way to make burning man better next year .... its simple stop by my camp nd have a beer with me [tada next year is looking better all ready huh]

[MoisturePup]

Uniform beacon lights for the porta potties on the playa so that they are easily located visually.

[Gothalot]

I agree with the point about bikes at the temple burn. It was my first year this year and i was really looking forward to the temple burn, and was hoping that the evening would be as beautiful and as moving as the temple itself. Sadly, I seemed to spend far too much time in crowds of ratty people pushing and bitching. In particular there was an incident where a whole group of bikes fell down and a ranger and group of people got into an argument about the space. the people who ownded the bikes were nowhere to be seen. I thought this was a shame.

Hell those that had bikes there got them trampled after a while, I saw dozens that made good footbridges albeit spokey. Its unfortunate for the bike owners that there were no places for the bikes that they could find.