Gary Stadler's Artistic History at Burning Man:
I'd heard about Burning man for years and always wanted to attend, but I owned an electronics manufacturing company that took enough of my time that I had virtually none left for much of anything else. After 35 years I finally put it to rest and "retired" (ha!) and time freed up considerably for me.
The first time I attended Burning man in 2001, I realized that this was finally the place I could share my art and craziness with a lot of like minded people! To date I'm personally and solely responsible for the creation of four projects that have been quite well received, the first being a "good guess" at how it would work since I'd never been before...
I'd always wanted to create an inflatable laser/video sphere as an artpiece, but never really had the place to do it or a good reason. I made a 65 foot inflatable sphere at my home "just because" and it worked quite well. Somewhere along the line I was doing a laser show for friends in that sphere and Pat Flanigan dropped by- we got to talking and the result was that for Emerald City in 2001 Pat financed my putting together that big 120 foot diameter/60 foot tall inflatable white dome structure that was next to the green spires (only at night whenever there was no wind).
Being that this was my first time on the Playa, I really didn't know what to expect in a number of critical areas of its engineering, and Pat and I both knew it wouldn't survive the winds at all (and it didn't). But I was up for the challenge and I did it, and it worked quite well. It was a dance of "up, down,up,down" etc because of the winds. But it was amazing when it was "up" and one night in one hour we counted 5000 people entering it! Most came out quite awe inspired.
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Project 2:
My second Burning Man project was for 2002, the motorized lawn swing "Kerman" as an art vehicle, featured in an article on Mutant Vehicles in the Black Rock Gazette in 2004
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The swing has been on the Playa every year since, and every year including 2005 it has been/will be improved as far as it's visual lighting for night time. It's been quite fun, giving folks rides, hauling ice, and serving as a good general fun mutant vehicle.
Project 3:
My second art vehicle was created for 2003 and 2004,
the Quadrapus, also featured in the Black Rock Gazette that was given to particpants at the entry gate in 2004.
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The quadrapus is a whacky vehicle that started around a ship's radome that I found at a junkyard. It turned into the fun thing it is... it takes two riders up top and up to 8 at the tips of it's arms, and at night it is amazingly beautiful with it's multi colored LED lighting.
Again, I add to it each year to make it more and more visually stimulating both day and night. This year (2004) I added microprocessor controlled LED's in all of the arms to give it a beautiful "wave of colors" effect.
Project 4:
Two years ago, working with what I'd learned with the big dome in 2001, I created the 50 foot high inflatable illuminated rainbow tower for Mystic Beat Lounge camp, simply to be able to find home easily day or night, and it was very successful up to about 30 mph, above which we had to take it down to avoid it getting trashed.
Though I shouldn't have been, I was totally surprised at how quickly it became a beacon for thousands of people to find their bearings on the Playa, from almost anywhere.
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For 2004 I made the tower 15 feet taller and changed how it was held to the ground, and was also a lot more scientific about the inflating pressure. It was a total success and it stayed up no matter what winds came around~! In doing the calculations, I realized that not only would it stay up in up to 65 mph winds, it would also *support* up to a 1,000 pound load. This is with only as much air pressure inside as you can blow with your mouth!! It was very weird this year as I climbed it as a test, knowing that I was being held up only by a tiny fan and a lot of air under not-much pressure!
Project 5: INNERMIND
