most of the technology mentioned in this article is WAY over my head. i think i'll take that as a sign that i need to brush up on my tech-nerdery, and resist the urge to use this as my transition into the land of curmudgeons..."all these kids and their computers". frankly, i blame my lack of iphone/crackberry and gps, neither of which has been an urgent necessity for me (see upcoming post on why i don't have an iphone or gps). @brady wrote a great article, and i'm sure there are others out there, but i ran across his first.
at any rate, it looks like burning man is branching out into (or being infiltrated by) the technologically creative world, as opposed to the old-fashionedly creative one. maybe they've already developed an iphone app where you can 'bump' the Man with your iphone flame and kick off the main event. plumbing can't be that far off...i might make it out there one day after all.
kudos to the event planners for using social networking to keep participants apprised of critical information. i'm all about efficiency and communication. however, every burner i've ever known has gone on and on about how it's about building a community of people, getting off the grid and back to society and survival at its most basic, depending on yourself and the community you create instead of an infrastructure, trading goods, services, and experiences instead of money, and most importantly, artistic freedom and expression*. as with any other contemporary experience, and unfortunately, some of the most mundane, people now feel compelled to share this with 436 of their closest friends. i frequently wonder how much of this is actually sharing for the betterment of others, how much of it is entertainment, and how much is just blatant self-promotion/cries for attention/self-importance on the part of the sharers, myself included. but that's another post.
what's going to happen to the mystique, the secret burning man society, the idea that "trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind"? i guess now people can try to explain it in 140 characters or less.
folks are twittering while touching the man, blogging about what to pack, flickring the art they see, and mapping themselves on google, so where does this new track fit into the burning man experience? a lot of it is useful-i know i scoured the web for every bit of first-hand advice before i went to bonnaroo. but i can't help but get back to that idea that some of it is just silly.
some people are as comfortable with technology being a part of the burning man experience as they are with its seamless integration into their daily lives; it is one of the most truly democratic forums out there-"we can make our own maps and base them on our own lives--screw you, rand mcnally!" it's just a tool; a means to an end for living life on their own terms. on the other hand, like people who can't experience nature without a patagonia fleece and $300 hiking boots, some adopters of technology are only in it for the benjamins. or the status. or because the cool kids laughed at them in 4th grade history for not having a trapper keeper, and now that they have real jobs they're getting fancier versions of the stuff they didn't have then. it's all relative-who am i to judge?
like any other art form, i guess it will just come down to the artist and the audience. maybe by the time i make it out to burning man, there will be personal transmitter chips that follow and report our actions to the general public. then everyone will know how amazing and cool i am--i won't have to blog about it anymore.
*i've never been to burning man. if you have, i'd love to hear your take on all of this.
Posts
