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Burning Man

burning man 2008

Burning Man 2008 Preview: Hippies, Robots, Crazy Cars and Flaming Fine Art

Once again, the week before Labor day brings offbeat art lovers from around the world to Black Rock City, Nevada, for a seven-day event that immerses the senses in radical artistic self-expression. Actually, its pretty hard to describe Burning Man unless you have actually been to one, but it is certainly a far cry from the stuffy art museum atmosphere most of us are familiar with. Plus, there are enough flaming gadgets to keep any nerd entertained. Hit the jump to see some of the unique projects on display this year.

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flaming

Fairground Shooting Gallery Gets Flamethrower Makeover for Burning Man

Created for this year's Burning Man festival, the Flamethrower Shooting Gallery looks like one hell of a stress-relieving sideshow amusement. It was created by Matisse and Roxie and recently debuted at the Oakland The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival... presumably to a warm reception. Check out the short video to see it in action—though you might want to turn the volume down, the happy screams are a little loud. More »

burning man

Maxablaster Flashlight Burns Skin, Clouds, Vampires

The Maxablaster is a 38-million-candlepower flashlight that was made at home by (mad?) optics engineer Ralf Ottow. Replacing a commercial flashlight's bulb with a plasma-powered mercury arc bulb, the Maxablaster creates a highly focused beam of light with a high UV content not so different from a star. More »

laptops

DIY "Bio-Hazard" Containment Cases for Mac 'Books

With all this talk of keeping yourself safe from laptops, what have you done lately to keep your laptop safe? Electronic duo effect69 went to extremes for a Burning Man performance by building custom "clean room" containment for their Mac laptops. Constructed out of PVC and acrylic, the cases even include the requisite built-in rubber gloves—though that surely makes playing these laptops that much harder. The idea was to keep out Burning Man's destructive sand out, but if your laptop happens to come into contact with an alien virus, you can keep yourself safe, too. More »

gadgets

Laser Harps and Tribal Twiddling at Burning Man

Propane-powered flame organs? People in the sand making grooves? Laser Aeolian interactive harps? It must be Burning Man time. The improbable orchestra is a knob-bestrewn groove box, hiding a gutted Pentium PC running open source sound software; several people can twiddle together. (I hear there s plenty of that at Burning Man.) The Aeolian interactive laser harp is a larger-than-life instrument: walk into the beams, and you trigger sound. And the veritable propane- powered flaming pyrophone will be back, too. So why are so many commercial electronic musical instruments so bland? Maybe the pro designers just need to get their knobs twiddled. -P. Kirn More »