Larry Harvey started Burning Man on Baker Beach in 1986, but it was John Law, Michael Mikel, and their Cacophony Society cohorts who in 1990 brought the countercultural gathering and its iconic central symbol out to Nevada's Black Rock Desert, where it grew into a beloved and unique event that last year was attended by 40,000 people.
Law hasn't wanted anything to do with Burning Man since he left the event in 1996 — until last week, when he filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court seeking money for his share of the Burning Man brand. Even more troubling to Harvey and a corporation that has aggressively protected the event from commercial exploitation, Law wants to move the trademarks into the public domain.
The suit has roiled and divided the Bay Area's large community of burners. Some support Law and the declaration on his blog that "Burning Man belongs to everyone," hoping to break the tight control that Harvey and Black Rock City LLC have exerted over their event and its icons, images, and various trademarks.
"If it's a real fucking movement, they can give up control of the name," Law told the Guardian in the first interview he has given about Burning Man in years.
"If it's going to be a movement, great. Or if it's going to be a business, then it can be a business. But I own a part of that."
Yet those who control the business, as well as many attendees who support it, fear what will happen if anyone can use the Burning Man name. They envision MTV coverage, a burner clothing line from the Gap, Girls Gone Wild at Burning Man, billboards with Hummers driving past the Man, and other co-optations by corporations looking for a little countercultural cachet.
"We've been fighting attempts by corporations to exploit the Burning Man name since the beginning," BRC communications director Marian Goodell wrote on the Burning Man Web site in response to the lawsuit. "Making Burning Man freely available would go against everything all of us have worked for over the years. We will not let that happen."
Harvey, Law, and Mikel became known as the Temple of Three Guys as they led the transformation of the event from a strange camping trip of 80 people in 1990 to a temporary city of burners experimenting with new forms of art and commerce-free community. By 1996 it had grown to 8,000 people.
"Plaintiff is recognized as the one individual without whose leadership and ability the event would not have been planned or produced," the lawsuit alleges. "Plaintiff alone became recognized as the 'face' of the event to local residents and authorities, and was the event's facilitator, technical director and supervisor."
Law's central role in the event has also been spelled out in Brian Doherty's 2004 book, This Is Burning Man, and in Guardian interviews over the years with many of the original attendees. As Law told the Guardian, "I put everything I had into it."
Mikel, also known as Danger Ranger or M2, played a key role as the event's bookkeeper and the founder of the Black Rock Rangers, who oversee safety and security and serve as the liaison between attendees and outside authorities.
The lawsuit minimized Harvey's role in the 1990 event: "Harvey, however, did ...
You wrote: "There is no store on the Burning Man Web site and virtually no merchandizing."
Here's a link to the Burning Man store, where you can find plenty of merchandizing:
[link]
Steven T. Jones
Labor Day weekend, 1989. I, with my roommates Miss P., Dawn & a mutual friend Cindy attended a wind sculpture event in the Black Rock desert sponsored by Planet X pottery in Gerlach Nevada. We hauled a lightweight mobile canopy bed (our sculpture) on top of a tiny sedan out to this remote, inhospitable area. The surreal local combined with mobile sculptures was both incredible and inspiring. That weekend was one that had a great & lasting impact on my life. I never wanted to leave. The desert attracted & stirred me, & I knew I had to go back.
Dawn once said “it’s so empty it’s full”.
When I returned to the Bay Area & started my final year in art school, I rallied a few friends & schoolmates around the idea of planning a Labor Day weekend trip to the Black Rock desert. I had been reading Hakim Bey’s “Temporary Autonomous Zone” & his ideas struck a chord. At that time I was into the youthful notion of destroying parts (if not all) of my artwork as a meditation on impermanence & the importance of flexibility. These concepts fused into a plan of generating a “creative incident” in the Black Rock desert with a central theme, the ritual destruction & immolation of both structures & artwork (a lager manifestation of the “meditation on impermanence & the importance of flexibility”). For an impoverished, young & naive art student, this vision seemed far too grand & expensive to accomplish alone. I decided to present the scheme to my good friend John Law (whom I had met through my involvement in The San Francisco Cacophony Society) and that was when the idea for “Zone trip 4, Bad day at Black Rock” was officially hatched as a cacophony event. I approached this individual because I sincerely considered he was (& is) person of great veracity & he would respect and lend a hand in my somewhat delusional concept. I was correct in my impulse & the event was to happen. Along the way, a few months from the target date of the Zone trip, I attended the Baker beach burn of the Burning man. Fortunately, (via the intervention of both the San Francisco police & fire departments) the monolithic figurine was not razed. Amidst chants of “burn it anyway!” and pagan-like drumming, a few of us cacophonist including Miss P. & Dawn thought it would be a great idea to invite Larry & his man along for our strange ride out to the Black Rock. If anything, he had the biggest, most expensive & elaborate piece of firewood that would make a glorious conflagration. It was a magnificent, awe-inspiring weekend. I would return and participate for the next 4 years, 1995 being my last year. (In all, 6 years every Labor day)
The event morphed from a Cacophony event into Burning man. In my opinion, it eventually got too big, supercilious & aloof. It had lost its soul (For me at least) & I felt a profound need to no longer contribute or attend. A year later, after the disastrous 1996 event, John and a few other key participants would renounce. In following years, other members of “the old guard” would trickle away for (I believe) similar reasons. This is not to diminish the importance of what others have contributed & experienced in the years since. The event is what one makes of it & I know countless have had their own, life changing occurrences in that desert. Since 1996 I’ve silently watched in admiration as numerous fresh & astonishing examples of creativity debut on the playa. I’m delighted to know that so many have had that same “feeling” I did Labor Day weekend so long ago.
This is severely circumcised history of my experience, but I feel I needed to regurgitate further the early conception of that desert “art” festival. A more concise history may be found in Brian Doherty’s “This is Burning man”.
That said, I wish to wholeheartedly express my support of John Law & his decision to go forward with his current legal actions. In the 20 or so years that I have know this man, he has been a wonderful and loyal friend, part of my family (he was the minister at my wedding) and an individual of great integrity. He has brought countless invaluable, “eye opening” & enriching experience to my life & the life’s of many others. In short, I would not be who I am today without him. For that I am forever grateful.
-Kevin Charles Evans
January 12, 2007
The amount of money it costs to go to B-Man is proof alone. Most people take off a week from work. They drive up in SUVs or other pricey vehicles. They load up on outdoor gear from REI and tons of food, water, drugs, booze, batteries, and techy stuff.
They come home and need a few days more off work to "decompress."
Did I mention the cost of tickets?
It's simple to see B-Man isn't what everyone claims it to be.
You mention the organizers not wanting Hummers or all this commercialization, guess what, I am sure many of the people there drive gas guzzling SUVs and have so many tech-gadgets that their electric bills are out of this world.
My main bone to pick is this, though: I have read over the B-Man's terms for anyone going there and taking photos, video, and etc.
It's complete and total censorship.
I wonder if these dumba**es have ever seen the First Amendment? Their weak attempt at preventing anyone from using these images only works because they threaten to sue and most people there/in attendance who are confronted with this oppressive behavior don't have the money, inclination or time to fight it.
Let's all remember something. B-Man takes place on PUBLIC land in the U.S. of A. governed by the U.S. Constitution. Their attempts at censorship and complete and total domination of anything creative that comes out of the week are assinine and pathetic.
I cannot believe that an event which takes place on public land and in the public domain has these sorts of restrictions. When did public land become the sole property of some private, corporate identity?
As for commodification or marketing or whatever the hell else they claim to be against, why doesn't someone explain Heineken sending in thousands of cases of beer to give away for free in 2006? Or the free bottled water? There are already executive from some of those cheap, wine-in-a-box companies lining up to send representatives to the B-Man in 2007 to make structures from the boxed wine and then pour the wine from the "walls."
The whole thing is a joke and the reality of it is the people there are just like any other group of people looking for an escape.
No different than the rest of us.
These folks go to the B-Man and run around nude, take X, get wild and crazy, go to raves all night, do things they would normally not do and then they want it all to be a secret.
In other words, they want to have their cake and eat it, too.
You do something in life, live up to it. The guy this article is about has a right to his share of an increasingly money-making endeavor.
I want to know where all the money from tickets for these 40,000 people goes?
The amount of money it costs to go to B-Man is proof alone. Most people take off a week from work. They drive up in SUVs or other pricey vehicles. They load up on outdoor gear from REI and tons of food, water, drugs, booze, batteries, and techy stuff.
They come home and need a few days more off work to "decompress."
Did I mention the cost of tickets?
It's simple to see B-Man isn't what everyone claims it to be.
You mention the organizers not wanting Hummers or all this commercialization, guess what, I am sure many of the people there drive gas guzzling SUVs and have so many tech-gadgets that their electric bills are out of this world.
My main bone to pick is this, though: I have read over the B-Man's terms for anyone going there and taking photos, video, and etc.
It's complete and total censorship.
I wonder if these dumba**es have ever seen the First Amendment? Their weak attempt at preventing anyone from using these images only works because they threaten to sue and most people there/in attendance who are confronted with this oppressive behavior don't have the money, inclination or time to fight it.
Let's all remember something. B-Man takes place on PUBLIC land in the U.S. of A. governed by the U.S. Constitution. Their attempts at censorship and complete and total domination of anything creative that comes out of the week are assinine and pathetic.
I cannot believe that an event which takes place on public land and in the public domain has these sorts of restrictions. When did public land become the sole property of some private, corporate identity?
As for commodification or marketing or whatever the hell else they claim to be against, why doesn't someone explain Heineken sending in thousands of cases of beer to give away for free in 2006? Or the free bottled water? There are already executive from some of those cheap, wine-in-a-box companies lining up to send representatives to the B-Man in 2007 to make structures from the boxed wine and then pour the wine from the "walls."
The whole thing is a joke and the reality of it is the people there are just like any other group of people looking for an escape.
No different than the rest of us.
These folks go to the B-Man and run around nude, take X, get wild and crazy, go to raves all night, do things they would normally not do and then they want it all to be a secret.
In other words, they want to have their cake and eat it, too.
You do something in life, live up to it. The guy this article is about has a right to his share of an increasingly money-making endeavor.
I want to know where all the money from tickets for these 40,000 people goes?
here:
[link]
you may also be interested in the BRC census..
[link]
..that is, y'know, if you're into checking your facts before you make assumptions and spread misinformation..? shrug. just a thought.
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