This page describes a theme-related art installation for Burning Man 2003. It is a collaboration between Aaron Ximm (me), my wife Bronwyn, and my brother Barnaby Thieme.

Implementation details are here. Latest news on volunteering is here.

Please write me with any questions or call me anytime at 415.487.9439 (home), 415.637.5347 (cell).

Far out on the playa, a field of many-colored lanterns is encounted. The lanterns are silent, suspended on bamboo poles at various hights. From afar they blend into the flickering lights of our carnival city, and the twinkling stars above. Up close the flicker of their small lights creates a gently wash of color on the playa.

The lights are spread seemingly at random over an area of perhaps thirty feet in diameter. Seen from above, the installation would look something ike this:

Each lantern is mounted on a bamboo pole at a height varying from close to the ground to 8' up.

Each lantern and has six facets, each of which is covered with a gel so that the light cast is colored. The gently flicker light is not particularly bright; at night, it casts a soft colored aurora on the playa below it. On the deep playa, this is more than sufficient to create a place that is welcoming and alive. The lanterns are fixed on bamboo poles, apparently by rope... the overall feel is austere but natural, plain but warm, beautiful and quiet. Last year, my very similar installation was described as peaceful, serene, a refuge, and Hobbiton-like.

To the casual observer, that's it....

However, there is a careful ordering waiting to be discovered by whoever takes a little time exploring the space...

One of my favorite aspects of the playa is how it strips space of its scale references. Illusions and mysteries of scale abound -- how far is it, anyway, to that sculpture? How big is that thing over there?

At night in particular, small point sources of light are very hard to fix in space. A bright light six feet away and thirty feet away look quite similar. Is that light a dropped glow stick, or a rave, or a whole installation I missed...?

I've imagined many games to play with this aspect of the space. The Prayer Wheel is my favorite idea so far.

Not long after I originally conceived of this piece working, I described it to an architect friend while visiting. Half way through my description, he sprang to his feet and ran into the next room. He returned with this print on a postcard, which he'd gotten early in the week:

Drawn by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), this sketch clearly demonstrates the principal on which the installation works: perspective and lines of sight.

In Dürer's print, we see that a three-dimensional shape can be captured with a perfect perspective drawing on a real two-dimensional plane -- a piece of paper, on which he's punched holes. (The principals he discovered behind perspective drawings are still taught in Art 101, and are the foundation of three-dimensional computer graphics of course).

In the Prayer Wheel, I flip his strategy around. A three-dimensional arrangement of objects can, in the right circumstances which obscure perspective, appear to occupy a a two-dimensional plane: can appear to draw something, in other words. Consider the old "I'm crushing your head" or "I'm holding up the Leaning Tower" trick —close one eye and squint, and you can start to see things as occupying the same plane.

In the Prayer Wheel, this optical trick is leveraged. From unique viewpoints, some of the lanterns line up in coherent patterns. There are five hidden shapes, five letters, viewable from five specific points regularly spaced around the installation.

Coherence -- regularity, alignment, color -- forces the viewer to perceive the lights as a group, even though they are scattered in space. Humans are very good at detecting patterns and regularity. Coherence is an even stronger perceptual force when we see faces or words -- any familiar shape, like a letter.

Consider the situation of the viewer below:

The yellow circles show where objects (lanterns) are really placed, at varying distances from the viewer, at various heights..

From our perspective, looking from the side, they're all over the place, a random distribution.

But to the viewer on the left, the lights line up in a neat line. It's easy to see how the viewer will group them, unconciously, if they're neatly spaced -- even if that neatness is an "accident' of a specific perspective, a trick of lines of sight, at a unique viewpoint.

The key is that at one viewpoint, s/he doesn't care that some of the lights are closer than others. We could slide the lights closer or farther to the viewer, anywhere along the dotted line axes, without upsetting the perceived line.

Another example of this principal is how how constellations work:

To boil it down: the lanterns in the Prayer Wheelmake dot-matrix letters on imaginary planes, but these secret shapes are viewable only from special viewpoints. By the magic of perspective the shapes are not visible from other positions.

Burning Man 2002: sign of light

These ideas were all realized last year in my installation for the deep playa, Sign of Light, which you can see here:

photography by Fritz Hoddick

The 'secret shape' in this piece, installed in 2002, was not a letter precisely, but the Japanese symbol enso, a slightly open or disjoint circle which often appears in Zen calligraphy.

Though you can't see it perfectly in this picture, but the circle appeared only from a unique perspective, from a unique place. If you sat in the right spot, with the installation between you and the Man, the lanterns would form the circle-symbol Enso around him.

There were hints that this was the case -- even a casual observer would notice that all the red facets faced in one direction; but it took a little effort to find the true, precise ordering. Much of my artwork in all mediums relies on active attention, a s small effort: in other words, participation.

Here's another picture, that shows that from another perspective, standing a little off to one side, they appear to be more randomly placed:

F

For this year's piece, the installation is very similar, but about three times as big. Instead of 23 lanterns it will use about 75.

As described above, last year's Sign of Light contained only a single 'hidden character.'

This year's Prayer Wheel has five juxtaposed symbols to be seen. Each one can only be see n from a unique, seperate location, as shown below.

Let's look again at the pattern of lights introduced at the top of this page, but with a new understanding:

From each of five special points of view (the graphic shows six, but I'm too tired to remake it!), the lantern facets of a specific color pick out one of five characters. One letter, one color, one unique viewpoint.

To see the entire message, the participant-viewer must walk around the entire piece. As each vantage point is approached, a particular color of lantern-facet will begin to predominate. It's much easier to see how compelling this is than to describe it -- but as you bike/walk around the piece, it will be clear that there is something going on, that the arrangement of color is not accidental.

It will still take a little patience to find the 'right' spots to read each letter/character however.

So... what do they say?

I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what the secret message should be. Some constraints:

• The fewer characters, the fewer lanterns, the simpler, the better.
• Five messages/points of view is the perfect number. If the imaginary planes are arranged as a pentagon, instead of a hexagon as shown, no two sides are parallel. This reduces the crosstalk -- the chance that one message might be readable from "behind".

The message I decided on is:

LET GO

As last year, the circular red O will appear to encircle the Man.

As described above, each letter will appear from only one position. All of the lantern-facets done in a particular color will face in only direction, and as part of a single level.

The message is as short a mantra as I could realize which resonated as completely true to my intent.

(Originally I thought about using Tibetan characters and the common mantra, Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum (hence the six-sized shape above), but I decided that most people would not be familiar enough with the Tibetan characters in the mantra to see them, especially if they were crudely realized.)

To read this mantra, one has to walk around the piece, stopping in five places to read each character in turn.

In doing so, one inadvertantly activates the piece as a virtual prayer wheel ~ to spin it, by walking around it, is to activate its blessing, dispersing it onto the wind. As one always walks around Buddhist precessional sites clockwise, the letters will be set up to be read in that direction.

Creating a virtual prayer wheel appeals to me on many levels. Here are several:

• There is a resonance between the message that the secret is hidden before your eyes, and the fact that the message is hidden before your eyes;
• The emphasis on compassion and clarity is one I find overwhelmingly compelling in these troubled times;
• My previous installations (sign of light, shown above, and kolam, a luminous mandala) were both based on (a) encounters with Hindu devotion from southern India; and (b) the Zen symbol Enso for enlightenment. I like the idea of evolving that thread;
• Walking around the installation to see what each "color" spells, one would inadvertantly(?) activate an enormous virtual prayer wheel. Surprise, you've been blessed!

I'd like to expand a moment on the last point. In many Buddhist traditions, walking is a form of meditation. In many versions of Mahayana Buddhism such as Tibetan, it is considered good karma to send mantras (prayers) into the world, even through mechanical means. The most well-known mechanical means in the West are prayer flags and prayer wheels.

When you spin a prayer wheel, the mantras inside it and enscribed on it are "activated" and spread on the wind, dispensing good karma. When the wind blows across prayer flags, the mantras inscribed thereon are activated and fly free.

Walking around a sacred object accomplishes much the same thing; Buddhists walk around sacred objects in a clockwise direction. (This also keeps the heart close to the object, and the unclean left hand farther away...)

From a relative frame reference, walking around the Prayer Wheel is staying still, and spinning the world.

Blowing through the Prayer Wheel, the Black Rock wind will disperse blessings to the four corners. God knows the world needs some blessings on the wind these days.

The piece will consist of about 75 lanterns (about $6, from Ikea!).

Each lantern contains a rigid interior wind screen, which in turn surrounds a small oil lamp.

The lanterns have six facets, each of which is covered with a colored professional lighting gel, affixed to the inside.

Each lantern will be mounted on a bamboo pole, which in turn is secured to a minimum 2' length of rebar, most of which is anchored in the playa. Last year we sunk all rebar at least 18" and had no problems with poles falling over, even in the (admittedly small amount of) strong wind.

Bamboo is affixed to rebar with multiple lashings of rope.

Lanterns are affixed to poles via a convenient combination of wire, bolts and washers, and rope. The lanterns happen to have 3 holes in the bottom, through which long bolts can be anchored firmly; these in turn 'grasp' the top of the bamboo on three sides like pincers. The resulting structure can be made very immobile using 8' of rope and if necessary a little armature wire or similar.

Last year we had no lanterns come off poles.

Lamps last year were oil lamps well sheltered from the wind; this tactic is much preferable to candles and will be used again this year.

This year, we'll be using self-contained oil cartridges instead of re-filling small glass oil lamps. This will eliminate the need to refill lamps by hand, greatly reducing the necessary daily work of tending to the much larger number of lamps in this year's piece.

Experience last year shows that a microscopic wick produces the appropriate 1/4" or smaller flame.

Oil lamps will be lit each dusk and when necessary blown out each dawn to preserve lamp oil.

One additional advantage of using self-contained, disposable plastic oil lamp cartridges is that no bulk or loose fuel must be kept and protected.

However, as with last year, a fire extinguisher will be maintained in all locations where the lamp cartridges are stored and transported.