It’s (was, is?) the end of August, and that means the entire dreadlocked population of San Francisco is out in the middle of the Nevada Desert for a week. Yes, it’s Burning Man, and as always we have a host of builds that make you ask, ‘how did they do that, and how did they get that here’.
For the last few years, the greatest logistical feat of art cars is the 747. Yes, it’s the fuselage of a 747, turned into an art car. The top deck is a convertible. The biggest question surrounding this 747 is how do you transport this thing? You can’t fly it in (well, you could, once), it’s not going to fit on a train, and it’s extraordinarily long. Now we have an answer: they did it on a truck. The 747 was stationed in the Mojave, and from there it’s a relatively quick shot up Nevada to Black Rock City. Several power lines had to be raised, and you’re still looking at an enormous logistical endeavour.
I’m saying it now. Sphere, the 1998 movie with Dustin Hoffman. There’s a 25 meter diameter mirror ball that looks like the sphere in Sphere. It’s inflatable, so that takes care of the obvious questions, but we’re still asking how this thing looks in person, how massive wind storms are going to affect what is basically a gigantic sale sail, and what the reflections of the sun will actually do. I suppose being convex, you’re not going to get the accidental architectural parabolic mirror effect that melts cars, but one can always hope.
Want a neat story on the features of Burning Man that doesn’t get a lot of press? IEEE Spectrum did a feature on Black Rock City airport. For one week a year, it is the third busiest airport in Nevada, behind McCarren and Reno. It’s also a towered, yet uncontrolled airport. This makes no logical sense, but it’s something that can happen with FAA regs.
[alicestewwwart] has left us with a quandary. She’s creating highly artistic circuits out of ICs, discrete parts, and wire. These circuits are functional, but we don’t know what to call them. They’re not quite deadbug, because SMD parts don’t have legs, and ‘deadbug’ gets its name from upside down DIPs that looks like dead centipedes. It’s not Manhattan style, although this might be closer to Manhattan than deadbug. So what is it? Leave your answer in the comments.
They’re going to have a gigantic sale of the 25 foot mirror ball, cool!
“how massive wind storms are going to affect what is basically a gigantic sale” I was thinking he meant that burning man had become a giant art gallery/flea market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIqecROs5M
Got it, fixed!
Zoomed in like that, looks to me like pipeline architecture.
“These circuits are functional, but we don’t know what to call them. ”
Various names. Component art, techno-art, recycled art, upcycled sculpture, environmental art, etc.
It not being dip is no reason not to call it deadbug
Sorry, didn’t mean for that to be a reply
My big question when it comes to Burning Man has always been “Why?”, rather than “How?”
The answer is found in Bob Dylan’s lyrics, staring with…
“I would not be so all alone….”
FWIW, she didn’t create them, nor does she say that she did; she was just presenting circuits that intrigued her. For example, here is a link to the one on the right: http://dangerousprototypes.com/blog/2012/10/08/little-wire-dead-bug-art/
Darn! If she had, I’d think a portmanteau of her name would work…
Alwart, Stewice, whatever…
Typo:- “gigantic sale” should read “gigantic sail”, unless the owner was trying to unload that mirror sphere?
From looking at the link contents (bad form, I know…) [alicestewwwart] is just collecting photos. Matseng (seen here from time to time?) is responsible for the ‘art’ (though it seems more like an “I can’t be arsed doing a PCB, so I’ll just quickly^Wspend even longer doing something cool” moment)
Ah yes, I’m responsible for the build in one of those pictures. And yea, it was like “I don’t want to use a boring PCB, I want to spend a few hours making something different”. And unfortunately I promptly destroyed the build after taking the picture of it by trying to enclose it in epoxy. I used regular (clear) epoxy glue but it turned opaque yellowish and horribly full of bubbles ;-(
Aw, that would have looked spectacular if the epoxy had worked. Great job laying out a really pleasing circuit!
Now THIS is a mirrorball…it made an appearance during Comfortably Numb at Pink Floyds Pulse concert at Earls Court, London. You need to watch right to the end, as if you need an excuse, it has a trick up its sleeve https://youtu.be/m3Wl2ZdfITU