BURNING MAN, BURNING LIFE (PART III)

Further glimpses from the now-yearly event; Part One here, Part Two here.

Last Friday, the Man went up in flames, accompanied by the usual dancing and carrying on, though the site itself wasn't disassembled until early this week. Some more annotated glimpses, taken in the days before the carnival folded up and went home, until next year.

- First two screenshots: the official Immolation of the Man, as hosted by Nova Linden. (Souvenir coins of the event available in a kiosk afterward.)

- Second column, first screenshot: Taylor Thompson's Giant Baby diorama.

- Second column, second screenshot: Digby Boffin's man-sized maze.

"I didn't have much in mind when I started," Boffin tells me, "but I did want to make the connection between life and a hamster maze. You know how sometimes the choices we make really aren't our choices but someone else's? That's all I really wanted to convey. I put the exercise wheel in there later to reinforce the illusion. Did you get a chance to go through it? It was big enough to walk and fly through..."

- Third column, first screenshot: Crackula Cunningham's morbid diaroma of ravenous beasts emerging from beneath the city streets.

"Basically," says Cunningham explaining his inspiration, "it was just me having fun... I originally had three or four concepts I considered, even started out with a different scene entirely the first day.

"I decided to go with what comes naturally, and, well... natural to me is generally kinda creepy, kinda comedic scenes of horror. Several of my favorite films are zombie/apocalyptic type films, especially Romero's trilogy and [Mario] Bava's Demons 1 and 2, and I've often drawn similar scenes in my art (had a few stories published in the horror comic Fleshrot-- cheap plug, I know.)

"So, basically, this was a comfy build for me; familiar territory. And I'm happy with how it came out, I suppose (especially the last day, when the plot magically allowed for 13000 prims and I really got to go nuts on it.) But I already have ideas for a couple more expansive/challenging builds that I'd love to have at, if invited to participate next year."

- Third column, second screenshot: Gattz Gilman's temple of fire, known as the Unholy Black Rock

"I've always liked the dark arts," Gilman says, "medieval times, video games about vampires (like Legacy of Kain, Blood Reaver). I had recently finished building my new home in Zuni, with a similiar look as the Unholy Black Rock. (Oh, and by the way, I'd like to thank Jimmy Thompson, he is the one that provided me with a texture that started it all.)

"Pretty much what happened was that I had applied for Burning Life, [but] was not picked at the drawing. A couple days later while I was working on my house I received an IM from Nova Linden asking me if I wanted to build for BL, and my response was pretty much 'HELL YEAH!'. I teleported there as fast as I could, and first idea that popped in my head was 'temple'. So, my BL build is kinda based on my house.

"My Burning Life build doesn't really express anything. The name of it I got from the name of the sim 'Black Rock' and since I had blood flowing everywhere, I added 'Unholy'.

"Second Life for me has been a place where I have an easier time creating. In real life, when I want to draw something, it doesn't come out good. There have only been a few times where I was able to draw what I wanted. SL takes this barrier away."

(Gilman also wants to add the following disclaimer: "No humans, animals or avatars were hurt in the making of this SL Build.")

- Fourth column, two screenshots: Ulrika Zugzwang's Space Elevator, carrying you hundreds of meters above Burning Life, and beyond the stratosphere.

"The idea to make a space elevator for my Burning Life project came from the unification of [the Burning Life region's] Two-Cows' 'futuristic' theme," Ulrika explains, "and the real-world Burning Man festival's 'Vault of Heaven' theme. Additionally, I wanted to contrast the structure with other builds by creating a unique, soaring vertical structure similar to the Burning Man figure itself."

"In the beginning," she adds, "I had plans for a project with a controversial message but became distracted with the joy of making planets, rockets, and comets. Thus, the top floor of the space elevator evolved into an immersive planetary diorama.

"The build was relatively simple, utilizing almost exclusively spheres and cylinders covered with freely availably space textures. My favorite components of the build were the three outer cylinders which gave the illusion of moving into and being in space. The first cylinder had a texture moving from transparent to black, the second cylinder had a texture moving from black to stars, and the final cylinder was covered completely in stars."

To make sure I've made my best effort to capture Burning Life in all its deranged, brilliant, wild mind creativity, I'll extend coverage into next week, with special attention given to some of the most ambitious projects of the event (by my lights, at least) in a series called, appropriately enough, Burning Embers...