When I attended Burning Man in the year 2000 I set up my tripod with my Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera on the playa near the Man, roughly on the 7am line, about ⅓ of the way from the Man to Esplanade. I took 48 photos at 7.5° intervals. The 48 photos have been blended in Photoshop into a single image 2.5 feet tall and 127 feet wide. Wrapped into a circle and mounted at eye level, this creates a circle about 40 feet diameter. Standing in the middle of the circle and looking out to the horizon, visitors get to see a 360° view of Burning Man as it was in 2000.
Ideally, to visually match where the pictures were originally taken, we hope to have the art installation placed in roughly the equivalent position this year.
When you look out towards the Man you see this year’s Man and the 2000 Man, when you look out towards center camp you see this year’s center camp and the 2000 center camp, and so on.
Small test print, 4 inches tall by 19 feet wide.
Center camp.
Small test print, 4 inches tall by 19 feet wide.
The man.
Test print, with grommets, 28 inches tall by 9 feet wide.
Build crew with test print.
Build crew getting started working on the full panorama print.
Installing 500 grommets by hand.
Rehearsal run — setting the poles.
Rehearsal run — admiring the print.
Rehearsal run — Robert’s installation jig.
Rehearsal setup crew.
Installing the poles.
Build team.
Daytime view.
The art was primarily a daytime installation. For safety at night we lit the art with LED lights. What we didn’t expect was that this turned it into a popular place for people to park their bikes at night, when they wanted to leave their bike somewhere where they knew they’d be able to find it again. Interestingly, people seemed to have an instinctive respect for the art itself, so while the outside became a vast sea of bicycles, I never saw anyone park a bike inside the circle.
Our camp.
Final cleanup.
