Burning Man LIVE

What does it mean to be (or not be) a festival?  Andie and Stuart speak with Eamon Armstrong, host of the Life is a Festival podcast about working Burning Man, Fest300, and the Psychedelic Therapy Podcast, as well as the future (if any) of festivals in a post-pandemic world, the nature of transformative experience, and his quest to achieve metamodern manliness without all the toxic masculinity. Ea...

A whole generation of kids has grown up with Black Rock City as their second address. And they’re amazing. Andie and Stuart talk with Burner kids and Burner parents about the challenges and rewards of going to BRC instead of summer camp. Nine-year-old Charlie (C.Bear) and sixteen-year-old Ava (Dust Storm) share what it’s like for them, and we hear from Lulu and her mother Molly, who’ve been going...

We keep talking about the Multiverse. What does that even mean? Is it actually a thing? Why is sad Stuart sad? It is because of his dead cat? Which human should we put in a supercollider, and why? Are Stuart’s dreams actually interdimensional travel, or just crazy talk?  What is reality?  All these questions and more are answered with even more questions by a theoretical physicist who also happens...

In a time and space without a Black Rock City event in Nevada, volunteer crews are using computer code instead of power tools to create a host of digital Burn experiences. What exactly are the “8 Recognized Universes of the Burning Man Multiverse?” What can you do in these online worlds, and will Daft Punk play at the virtual trash fence? Logan and Stuart go looking for answers with the organizers...

We like to say that Burning Man is made of a million stories.  Catherine Burns is the artistic director of The Moth. It’s a wildly popular, Peabody-award winning storytelling series now celebrating its 20th year. Burning Man stories have been told many times on the Moth stage. As it turns out, Catherine has a few Burning Man stories of her own.  Stuart and Andie talk with her about loving, grievin...

Stuart talks about Burning Man art, making art, and making art about the art, with Jennifer Raiser , author of the book “Art on Fire,” Sophia Swire , producer of the new film of the same name, and Andrew Johnstone , one of the artists profiled in the film. Burning Man art has become a movement in the mainstream art world and in popular culture, and spawning museum shows, books, and films. In what...

Tony “Coyote” Perez has been building and striking Black Rock City since 1996, back when it had a tenth of the population and a tenth of the stability and user-friendliness. Two long years later he co-founded BRC's Department of Public Works and has been the City Superintendent ever since. He’s the “Bard of the Desert,” the blogger “Coyote Nose,” and Burning Man’s first Storytelling Fellow. His bo...

The Burning Man event started as a “temporary autonomous zone” with no law enforcement of any kind. Then the community came together to create its own, homegrown public safety organization, the Black Rock Rangers.  Could the Rangers serve as a model for other cities looking to defund or demilitarize their police forces?  Are social capital and good communication skills enough to inspire positive c...

An otherworldly oasis in the desert. Water, wildlife, possibility, and responsibility. Zac manages Fly Ranch in Nevada. He shares about stewarding the majestic and extreme natural sanctuary. Elizabeth and Robert direct the Land Art Generator, and challenge artists and engineers - anyone - to design aesthetic and harmonious energy infrastructure for prototyping in the extreme environment of Fly Ran...

Stuart talks with one of the Founders Harley K. Dubois about how Burning Man evolved since the 1990s... and what now…  Power, money, and consumer substitutions for real experiences.  Rain and rave camps at Black Rock City, and living under a lucky star.  Maker Culture, social capital, and seeing ourselves through the coming changes. Coyote tells of the time a woman in white emerged from the mud to...

How does the Burning Man community engage in the fight for racial justice? What skills do we have to share? Burning Man Project’s Senior Communications Manager Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley speaks with three guests who have devoted much of their lives and time to these questions. Élida Margarita Bautista, Erin Douglas, and Marlon Williams join Burning Man LIVE and discuss the current landscape of the...

Stuart Mangrum and Logan Mirto talk with DA (aka Dominic Tinio) about Playa Restoration, the team that returns the desert to a pristine state after each Black Rock City, and the meditative pride that comes with it.  They recount launching a burning piano from a trebuchet at the world’s largest Leave No Trace event. They discuss environmental sustainability, MOOP (Matter Out Of Place) and DA’s Blac...

Stuart Mangrum and Andie Grace talk with Comedian & Podcaster Duncan Trussell about the show The Midnight Gospel, the secret sauce of Black Rock City, the BRC art theme and temple, alternate realities, death, mourning, gurus, absinthe, “Drunk History,” and Terrence McKenna... and the Tibetan Book of Dreaming and Sleep… and some other stuff too... duncantrussell.com Caveat Magister shares about how...

Stuart Mangrum and Andie Grace talk to leaders of the Burning Man Regional Network about creative ways organizers around the world are out-weirding the pandemic.  Iris Yee, Head of the Burning Man Regional Network  Steven Raspa, Associate Director of Community Events The Burning Man Regional Network plays a key role in the year-round extension of the Burning Man experience, supporting it as a glob...

Stuart Mangrum and Dicky Davies talk with three temple builders of Black Rock City. What does “temple” mean in the context of Burning Man, a secular culture based on humanist principles, where ritual is a vector for culture, not really a religious thing..? Lawrence “Renzo” Verbeck is an architect, contractor, and sculptor.  Sylvia Adrienne Lisse collaborates on large-scale, interactive art teams a...

Stuart Mangrum and Andie Grace talk with Tom Price, a Founder of Burners Without Borders, and its current leader Christopher Breedlove.  They discuss BWB's creative solutions to crises, from Hurricane Katrina to COVID, and how Burning Man is a permission engine for people to develop new attributes and expressions, have fun, and surf the chaos.  Pyrotechnics Expert DaveX makes the impossible possib...