Unsafe art at Burning Man

[Michael Watson]

Burning Man is different from other art venues because of the lack
of regulation and very minimal safety controls. The attitude is
libertarian and borders on anarchy. It is held on a dry lake bed
out in the middle of nowhere (the town just before Burning Man is
"Nowhere, Nevada." This can be quite thrilling and people do die
for various reasons. For example, people on other lists are
complaining about someone who torched an art car filled with
propane tanks.

The ticket states clearly
YOU VOLUNARILY ASSUME THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH BY
ATTENDING

One art project example:
I can not adequately describe this project but will try: a 15 foot
high plate steel sculpture, carved with welders tools, with various
arms and other projections. Inside is a small gas turbine jet
engine which powers flames out the top and through the arm
projections. There are many high pressure air valves controlled by
computer. Also controlled by computer are various nozzles to inject
chemicals into the jet turbine exhaust at various points to produce
multi-colored flames. The sound is deafening up close and can be
heard from a mile away. It is not pure sound of a jet engine, but a
pulsing stacatto sound driven by turning high pressure air and
flamable liqued injection valves on and off. What you see is a
steel sculpture with intense flames and sound pouring out in a
ever-changing pattern, musical in its quality. At one point it
looks like the thing goes haywire and flamable liqued pours onto
the desert floor and catches fire. I was 20 feet away when this
happened but assumed that it was part of the function, perhaps not
a safe assumption (but it was)

You can read about other art projects on this thread:
http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=97

Michael