ABOUT
Burning Man is unique to me in the sense that everything you find at the event is made by the people who come to it, and actually pay their own ticket. The organizers make sure to get the permits, and set up a minimal infrastructure, such as supply bathrooms, security, medical tents, and also bring all sort of machinery to help people build their art and their gigantic camps.
Artists building their art for free
When I started the documentary I met many groups of artists, building giant sculptures for Burning Man. They would often get together months, sometimes even a year in advance, to design, gather the materials, meet to decide, organize fundraisers, and build a piece of art that would most certainly only be seen once at Burning Man. And some groups like in the 2 left pictures above would build giant sculptures of wood, temples, to burn them down at the end of the event. The people behind the art would often not be full time artists, they would have a regular job, and work at nights and weekends for a full year with no other goal than to blow the mind of others and certainly theirs. All this for free. Nobody gets paid, nobody collects a salary. I was mesmerized by the energy, and the will to create art only for the sake to create art, and often share it once for a single week.
After my first year, I decided to make a documentary… because the story needed to be told. But Burning Man beyond the art, is like a free, open-minded community that comes here for a week to let go of many hang-ups that we all have and that builds up throughout time, and coming around with a video camera is not really considered a good thing. People come here to be free of the everyday world, and express that freedom in many different ways, that often needs the voyeuristic eye of the camera to be away, in order for the freedom to be complete.
It became obvious that I had to make my camera work as integrated as possible in the Burning Man experience, to avoid interfering with anyone’s experience. I wanted to become one of the builders, one of the artists of that community. And I was going to try to do it with a camera.
A few months in the process, I decided to film a lot more than what I needed to produce the documentary with, and actually to follow groups of artists throughout an entire project, and then give them all the footage that I had for their own usage… do whatever you want with my footage, since it’s about what you have sweated over for the past year. My contribution is small in comparison…
The funny thing that happened through becoming part of these groups of artist is that I discovered the other side of Burning Man. I discovered what it takes for the artists and the organizers to put the event together, but I also discovered the politics, I discovered the battle for power, the real relationships that existed between the people who were so deeply involved with the event. As I was experiencing completely how creating and organizing was the key to building a true community of people, I was also seeing how that couldn’t be without some people imposing themselves over others, and naturally pushing some away no matter how creative they could be!
That became the story I wanted to tell… the story of a community that built itself over 30 years, since its origins in the late 1970s, and how it dealt with its exponential growth. That is DUST & ILLUSIONS. The visual Illusions that the desert creates through its many weather patterns, the Illusions created through the many states of the mind everyone goes into there, and I ask: maybe the Illusions that what we’re doing in the desert and year around is really different from the way our larger society functions.
Hope to see you soon at a screening to talk more about these things and others.
Olivier Bonin, Director.
ARTISTS’ LETTERS
Below you will find some testimonials that some of those artists have written for me. I asked them to write a small letter in order to help me convince the Burning Man organization to publish a request for support in their massive newsletter (called the Jack Rabbit Speaks – JRS) that goes to thousands of people.
A few months ago a friend happened to stumble across Olivier’s footage. What a gold mine! Olivier had posted the raw, unedited source material for his documentary online — his gift to the playa. A friend from our camp contacted him, and Olivier generously offered to transfer the original high quality footage from the source tapes. His tapes included interviews with camp mates, as well as footage of the construction process. Amazingly, he managed to capture the Sonic Runway in action. For the first time, I can show my parents what it looked like! Thank you, Olivier!
Olivier is a Burning Man artist in the final pushes of a multi-year project. He has given a huge gift to our community. Please consider granting him access to the JRS newsletter so the community can help him get his film out the door. I can’t wait to see it!
Thank you,
I am writing this email to support the idea of letting Olivier Bonin be able to put a listing on the Jack Rabbit Speaks newsletter to enlist support for his movie project.
I first met Olivier in 2004 and have always been impressed by the fact that unlike most other video documentarists, he has shared his digital video footage of my projects with me. This has been very valuable to me as I would not otherwise be able to share what I do with those who were not at the original performances. And he shoots better footage than anything I have been able to achieve on my own; his footage that he has always shared freely with me has been of a higher quality than much other video that I have seen. Through this process of documenting and sharing, I have become close friends with him. He is one of the good guys in my book.
Thank you for considering letting Olivier have access to make a JRS listing.
Best Regards,
Tom Kennedy. Art Car Artist.
Olivier introduced himself as a filmmaker who was interested in documenting the artist’s experience of making work in the tumultuous environment of the Black Rock Desert.
I was and still am, specifically intrigued by his authentically sincere interest in creatively investigating the varied work, thought processes, and unique challenges that artists encounter on the playa.
Olivier and his assistant were invited to shoot video during the installation, which he dedicatedly pursued frequently into the early mornings and at times, to the possible detriment of his delicate equipment. He was very amicable and respectful to both my ten-person crew and me.
Subsequent to the festival, Olivier has generously shared his beautiful imagery of high quality video without requesting anything in return – an unusually gracious gesture consistent with the notion of sharing and community that is intrinsic to the Burning Man festival.
I have made work for the Burning Man festival in 2003 –2005. These wonderful experiences have changed my life. Sharing my work with the Burning Man community and meeting the many talented, hard working people on the playa has been a continued source of inspiration.
Video is a great medium to capture the phenomenal environment of the playa and the tremendous efforts required by any artist who desires to install work for the festival.
Olivier is a devoted filmmaker whose work I believe will offer an interesting perspective to those who have participated in the festival and to others beyond the Burning Man community who have not had the opportunity to experience art work on the playa . I am eagerly looking forward to the result of Olivier ‘s efforts and support his request for access to the JRS so he may enrich and expand his creative endeavor.
I know you have seen the first cut of Dust and Illusions. It is an interesting, intelligent, unique perspective of burning man, told by the citizens of black rock city, and the dilligent work of olivier in filing, editing the piece. Olivier has put in a massive amount of work to get it to its current state. He has been a one man army in the process. What he needs is help and support from the Burning Man community to take it from the preview to a complete movie, ready for presentation at film festivals around the work.
We all have wonderful, amazing, incredible memories of Burning Man. But memories are forgotten. What will make a place for Burning Man in history, is the documentation of the experience.
By supporting Olivier, you will provide an opportunity for people who have never seen or heard of Burning Man to experience it and get some understanding of what the event means through Olivier’s work.
As a Burning Man artist I feel a special debt to Olivier for the job he has done documenting the work we do.. I met Olivier when I started working with Flaming Lotus girls a little more than 4 years ago. He was documenting before I arrived and since then has not only made a great video record of The Angel of the Apocalypse, The Serpent Mother and Mutopia but been there to record how these works were dreamed and made, installed, run, and dismantled. He was there at the birth of Swarm. He has documented the work of Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusalito, Tom Kennedy, Pepe Ozun and many others.
When folks study Burning Man art of this decade this record will be invaluable. Our work is ephemeral. We only see it whole when it is out at Black Rock. Olivier’s videos gives us a way to revisit our work and it also opens a window to Burning Man to the great majority of folks who never had the opportunity to see it. Olivier’s work is a gift to our community. He deserves the right to speak to that community through JRS.
Thanks for listening.
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