There's not a lot in Black Rock Desert, and there hasn't been for 10,000 years. Sandstorms are frequent and there's a noticeable lack of creature comforts, like roads or water.
But in this unlikely patch of wasteland creativity and human endeavor flourish each summer, as a city of 60,000 people rises from the dust.
Burning Man festival, a gathering "dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance," say organizers, has taken place annually since 1986.
The fully-functioning metropolis comes complete with planning services, emergency, safety and sanitary infrastructure. But above all it is a place for art: with countless creative projects being realized in the week-long event -- chief among them, a 40-foot-tall wooden man, burnt on the festival's final night.
Photographer N K Guy's new book The Art of Burning Man (published by Taschen) and connected exhibition at London's Lights of Soho gallery chart 16 years of the festival's art. Here, he gives a guided tour of the desert art that brings thousands to the inhospitable wilds.
Embrace by Kevan Christiaens, Kelsey Owens, Bill Tubman, Joe Olivier, Matt Schultz and the Pier Group (2014)
But in this unlikely patch of wasteland creativity and human endeavor flourish each summer, as a city of 60,000 people rises from the dust.
Burning Man festival, a gathering "dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance," say organizers, has taken place annually since 1986.
The fully-functioning metropolis comes complete with planning services, emergency, safety and sanitary infrastructure. But above all it is a place for art: with countless creative projects being realized in the week-long event -- chief among them, a 40-foot-tall wooden man, burnt on the festival's final night.
Photographer N K Guy's new book The Art of Burning Man (published by Taschen) and connected exhibition at London's Lights of Soho gallery chart 16 years of the festival's art. Here, he gives a guided tour of the desert art that brings thousands to the inhospitable wilds.
Embrace by Kevan Christiaens, Kelsey Owens, Bill Tubman, Joe Olivier, Matt Schultz and the Pier Group (2014)
![<strong>CNN Style: Can you describe the festival to someone who had never been before?</strong><br /><br />N K Guy: That's a tough one, as it's such a multifaceted experience that means something different for each attendee<br /><br />For some people it's a big party, for others, [a chance] to work with a community of friends to build a massive project you could never do by yourself. For some it's a spiritual experience, for some it's the biggest brashest loudest rave you've ever seen. For some it's a chance to explore aspects of your personality and life you could never do at home. For others a chance to push yourself in ways you never knew you could.<br /><br />There are people who go with a couple friends, thinking they're just going to dance the week away, and find themselves helping build a massive art piece on a flat desert plain. There are others who find love, lose love, make best friends for life.<br /><br />This all sounds a bit cheesy in a way, but it does become a bit like dancing about architecture -- how can you truly express the week-long intensity of such an event?](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/150724115127-temple-of-whollyness-by-fle.jpg?q=w_3500,h_2500,x_0,y_0,c_fill/h_447)
CNN Style: Can you describe the festival to someone who had never been before?
N K Guy: That's a tough one, as it's such a multifaceted experience that means something different for each attendee
For some people it's a big party, for others, [a chance] to work with a community of friends to build a massive project you could never do by yourself. For some it's a spiritual experience, for some it's the biggest brashest loudest rave you've ever seen. For some it's a chance to explore aspects of your personality and life you could never do at home. For others a chance to push yourself in ways you never knew you could.
There are people who go with a couple friends, thinking they're just going to dance the week away, and find themselves helping build a massive art piece on a flat desert plain. There are others who find love, lose love, make best friends for life.
This all sounds a bit cheesy in a way, but it does become a bit like dancing about architecture -- how can you truly express the week-long intensity of such an event?
N K Guy: That's a tough one, as it's such a multifaceted experience that means something different for each attendee
For some people it's a big party, for others, [a chance] to work with a community of friends to build a massive project you could never do by yourself. For some it's a spiritual experience, for some it's the biggest brashest loudest rave you've ever seen. For some it's a chance to explore aspects of your personality and life you could never do at home. For others a chance to push yourself in ways you never knew you could.
There are people who go with a couple friends, thinking they're just going to dance the week away, and find themselves helping build a massive art piece on a flat desert plain. There are others who find love, lose love, make best friends for life.
This all sounds a bit cheesy in a way, but it does become a bit like dancing about architecture -- how can you truly express the week-long intensity of such an event?
CNN Style: What's one thing people who have never been to Burning Man don't understand?
N K Guy: I think the biggest misapprehension that people have is it's a bunch of naked hippies on drugs, bartering. I'm not sure how this idea came about. Some people are naked, though most express themselves through fun and creative costumes. There are some people you could probably label hippies, but far more people you could tag punks, car mechanics, mothers, goths, ravers, granddads, house builders, software developers, baristas... Drugs? Sure, but so does every rock concert you've ever been to.
As for bartering, the point of the event is that it should be a space free of commercialism and transactional interactions. Bartering is still about putting value on things. Instead, it's an event that focuses on people providing their own personal offerings to others, free of obligation - what Burning Man likes to call gifting. Whether that be people cooking up a pancake breakfast, or volunteering with a group, or building a massive art installation for everyone else to enjoy, it's a place on the planet where nothing is bought or sold. And that's an amazing thing to experience in today's commercial society.
The Temple of Transition by David Best and the Temple Crew (2011)
N K Guy: I think the biggest misapprehension that people have is it's a bunch of naked hippies on drugs, bartering. I'm not sure how this idea came about. Some people are naked, though most express themselves through fun and creative costumes. There are some people you could probably label hippies, but far more people you could tag punks, car mechanics, mothers, goths, ravers, granddads, house builders, software developers, baristas... Drugs? Sure, but so does every rock concert you've ever been to.
As for bartering, the point of the event is that it should be a space free of commercialism and transactional interactions. Bartering is still about putting value on things. Instead, it's an event that focuses on people providing their own personal offerings to others, free of obligation - what Burning Man likes to call gifting. Whether that be people cooking up a pancake breakfast, or volunteering with a group, or building a massive art installation for everyone else to enjoy, it's a place on the planet where nothing is bought or sold. And that's an amazing thing to experience in today's commercial society.
The Temple of Transition by David Best and the Temple Crew (2011)
CNN Style: Tell me about your first time at Burning Man
N K Guy: My first time was much like many other people's. It was spring 1998, I was looking for a cool weekend stop on a summer road trip, and I was looking for a great party. I'd seen photos of the first Burning Man in the desert back in 1990, published in the Whole Earth Review magazine, but I wasn't prepared for what a vast bustling city of art and experience I'd find. It was like visiting a foreign country that you'd seen on a postcard -- nothing quite prepares you for the experience of immersion in such a culture -- simultaneously utterly familiar yet completely surreal. I had to stop and try to learn these mysterious new cultural conventions.
N K Guy: My first time was much like many other people's. It was spring 1998, I was looking for a cool weekend stop on a summer road trip, and I was looking for a great party. I'd seen photos of the first Burning Man in the desert back in 1990, published in the Whole Earth Review magazine, but I wasn't prepared for what a vast bustling city of art and experience I'd find. It was like visiting a foreign country that you'd seen on a postcard -- nothing quite prepares you for the experience of immersion in such a culture -- simultaneously utterly familiar yet completely surreal. I had to stop and try to learn these mysterious new cultural conventions.
CNN Style: What's the most surreal thing you've seen there?
N K Guy: Hard to narrow that one down but I think probably the unparalleled experience of slogging your way across the flat featureless desert during a massive dust storm. Choking powder. Blinding dust. The smell in the air and the hissing in your ears. And suddenly the curtain of white drops for just a moment and you find yourself in front of a vast wooden temple that's sprung up out of nowhere. It's like being transported to an alien planet, or walking onto a movie set when nobody is filming.
CS (Clock Ship) Tere by Andy Tibbetts (2013)
N K Guy: Hard to narrow that one down but I think probably the unparalleled experience of slogging your way across the flat featureless desert during a massive dust storm. Choking powder. Blinding dust. The smell in the air and the hissing in your ears. And suddenly the curtain of white drops for just a moment and you find yourself in front of a vast wooden temple that's sprung up out of nowhere. It's like being transported to an alien planet, or walking onto a movie set when nobody is filming.
CS (Clock Ship) Tere by Andy Tibbetts (2013)
CNN Style: What motivated you to document the art here?
N K Guy: It started as a desire to capture and interpret the incredible sights around me to help me process it, really. A very personal endeavor. After around five years I started focusing intently on the process of documentation for other people, to share these unparalleled experiences with others. I joined Burning Man's official art documentation team with a bunch of other crazy photographers, and started going simply to take photos. The party fell by the wayside.
A big part of the art and the event is the transience, its temporary magic. But by recording it for others, aspects of it live on even in the memories of those who haven't been there. And now, with my new book from TASCHEN, I've helped create a record of something that I believe will be looked back on historically as an important inflection point in the history of contemporary and user-created art.
Pier 2 by Kevan Christiaens, Matt Schultz and the Pier Group (2012)
N K Guy: It started as a desire to capture and interpret the incredible sights around me to help me process it, really. A very personal endeavor. After around five years I started focusing intently on the process of documentation for other people, to share these unparalleled experiences with others. I joined Burning Man's official art documentation team with a bunch of other crazy photographers, and started going simply to take photos. The party fell by the wayside.
A big part of the art and the event is the transience, its temporary magic. But by recording it for others, aspects of it live on even in the memories of those who haven't been there. And now, with my new book from TASCHEN, I've helped create a record of something that I believe will be looked back on historically as an important inflection point in the history of contemporary and user-created art.
Pier 2 by Kevan Christiaens, Matt Schultz and the Pier Group (2012)
CNN Style: What is the greatest piece of art you have seen created at the festival?
N K Guy: I honestly can't answer that. It's not because I want to avoid hurting someone's feelings -- it's just impossible to name one single piece that transcends the other.
But I think that the most powerful group of works would be the yearly temples that are constructed in the desert. First created by David Best and his team, the temples have become the emotional core of the event in ways that nobody expected. They've become a secular sacred space, where people can gather to grieve and experience loss of any kind. By the end of the week, when the temple is finally burned, it's festooned with notes, letters, personal artifacts that allow each participant to add a bit of themselves to the structure. It's not a phenomenon you'd expect at a festival.
David designed many of these temples, but there has been a rotating cast of artists, designers, and architects who have built the others. Each temple is different, often stunningly so, but in a funny sort of way each temple is also the same one, since they all have the same intent and emotional gravity to them.
The Temple of Joy by David Best and the Temple Crew (2002)
N K Guy: I honestly can't answer that. It's not because I want to avoid hurting someone's feelings -- it's just impossible to name one single piece that transcends the other.
But I think that the most powerful group of works would be the yearly temples that are constructed in the desert. First created by David Best and his team, the temples have become the emotional core of the event in ways that nobody expected. They've become a secular sacred space, where people can gather to grieve and experience loss of any kind. By the end of the week, when the temple is finally burned, it's festooned with notes, letters, personal artifacts that allow each participant to add a bit of themselves to the structure. It's not a phenomenon you'd expect at a festival.
David designed many of these temples, but there has been a rotating cast of artists, designers, and architects who have built the others. Each temple is different, often stunningly so, but in a funny sort of way each temple is also the same one, since they all have the same intent and emotional gravity to them.
The Temple of Joy by David Best and the Temple Crew (2002)
CNN Style: Would you say Burning Man has influenced you?
N K Guy: Burning Man has allowed me to grow as a photographer. I look back at my first snapshots from 1998 with a bit of embarrassment. I've learned so much about transforming a scene in front of me into something that can stand alone as a record of a moment in time.It's also given me a sense of what teams of volunteers, guided by a common vision and goal, can accomplish. All without the usual structures of hierarchy, money, government, religious institutions, or corporations.
Remains of the Man by Burning Man arts festival participant Kaspian (2013)
N K Guy: Burning Man has allowed me to grow as a photographer. I look back at my first snapshots from 1998 with a bit of embarrassment. I've learned so much about transforming a scene in front of me into something that can stand alone as a record of a moment in time.It's also given me a sense of what teams of volunteers, guided by a common vision and goal, can accomplish. All without the usual structures of hierarchy, money, government, religious institutions, or corporations.
Remains of the Man by Burning Man arts festival participant Kaspian (2013)
CNN Style: What role does art play at the festival?
N K Guy: Art is central to the event. There are tons of festivals out there, many focusing on music or a gathering of community. But none are so focused around art. Nowhere else do teams of friends and strangers, and occasionally even enemies, gather together to build such enormous pieces of temporary art. Art has become definitional to the event, from the very first Burning Man figure to the vast plain of installations that characterizes the even today.
And it's art that you can explore and interact with. It's not a gallery where you walk in and gaze at small works from a distance.
Man Burn by Larry Harvey, Jerry James, Dan Miller, the ManKrew, Lewis Zaumeyer and Andrew Johnstone (2013)
N K Guy: Art is central to the event. There are tons of festivals out there, many focusing on music or a gathering of community. But none are so focused around art. Nowhere else do teams of friends and strangers, and occasionally even enemies, gather together to build such enormous pieces of temporary art. Art has become definitional to the event, from the very first Burning Man figure to the vast plain of installations that characterizes the even today.
And it's art that you can explore and interact with. It's not a gallery where you walk in and gaze at small works from a distance.
Man Burn by Larry Harvey, Jerry James, Dan Miller, the ManKrew, Lewis Zaumeyer and Andrew Johnstone (2013)
CNN Style: How has Burning Man changed in the time you've been there?
N K Guy: It's certainly changed in scale quite a bit -- the event now has over four times the population count than it did when I first went. The art is of a bigger and grander scale as budgets and ambitions increase. It's become more international -- people come to the event from all over the plane
It's also hit limits to growth. In the earlier days it felt it could soar forever. There seemed no ceilings, no bounds. Only the most basic rules, like no driving around and no guns. But the two-lane road that winds its way north across the desert isn't any wider today than it was 16 years ago. And this has put a fixed limit on the number of people that can reasonably be accommodated.
Black Rock City. City plan by Rod Garrett (2011)
N K Guy: It's certainly changed in scale quite a bit -- the event now has over four times the population count than it did when I first went. The art is of a bigger and grander scale as budgets and ambitions increase. It's become more international -- people come to the event from all over the plane
It's also hit limits to growth. In the earlier days it felt it could soar forever. There seemed no ceilings, no bounds. Only the most basic rules, like no driving around and no guns. But the two-lane road that winds its way north across the desert isn't any wider today than it was 16 years ago. And this has put a fixed limit on the number of people that can reasonably be accommodated.
Black Rock City. City plan by Rod Garrett (2011)
CNN Style: How has Burning Man changed (continued)?
N K Guy: Nowadays tickets are heavily in demand, and there's a desperate sense of competition to get there that didn't exist before. This is sad, but an inevitable consequence of growth. But more positively, it's helped fuel the tremendous growth of regional events, such as Nowhere in Spain.
But some things don't change. The dust, the vast scale of the desert against which we're all incomprehensibly small creatures, the gatherings of friends, the sense of open invitation to be who you want to be -- that's always part of Burning Man.
El Pulpo Mecanico by Duane Flatmo and Jerry Kunkel (2014)
N K Guy: Nowadays tickets are heavily in demand, and there's a desperate sense of competition to get there that didn't exist before. This is sad, but an inevitable consequence of growth. But more positively, it's helped fuel the tremendous growth of regional events, such as Nowhere in Spain.
But some things don't change. The dust, the vast scale of the desert against which we're all incomprehensibly small creatures, the gatherings of friends, the sense of open invitation to be who you want to be -- that's always part of Burning Man.
El Pulpo Mecanico by Duane Flatmo and Jerry Kunkel (2014)
CNN Style: What's next for you?
N K Guy: What's next? I keep working on my books on technical photography -- the second edition to my book on flash photography is coming out this year. But my next major project is actually completely unrelated to Burning Man. I'm working on a book on Stanley Kubrick.
Lost Suitcase by Pi Feathersword (2013)
N K Guy: What's next? I keep working on my books on technical photography -- the second edition to my book on flash photography is coming out this year. But my next major project is actually completely unrelated to Burning Man. I'm working on a book on Stanley Kubrick.
Lost Suitcase by Pi Feathersword (2013)
