Tomales Bay Explorers Club, Burning Man 1999

Flying Dinosaurs

Bob Stahl

Trapped in a World they never made... the land that Time forgot!

The Playa is the Playground of The Giants! Pterosaurs patrol the seas of the Primordium!

Doggie Dinosaurs installation in the Wheel of Time

Homage to the ridiculous, the enigmatic... three 24-foot wingspan pterosaurs, at 1:30 in the Primordium of the Wheel of Time. The final installation differed from the original concept, which had been to create a more interactive piece that participants could climb upon and operate, giving the rider a sense of oneness with the powerful prehistoric creatures that once haunted the inland seas and islands of ancient Nevada.

Instead, an idea germinated -- to reflect upon the past times of Burning Man itself, using beloved images from years gone by. Doggie Diner heads once stood like sphinxes on the desert floor, 1960's American advertising art salvaged from San Francisco's own past by John Law, mysteriously become cultural icons among Bay Areans. Readers of the Zippy the Pinhead comic know the Dog as the silent statue before which Zippy confesses his dark thoughts.

The Dog is, in fact, a jewel in my own memory. I grew up a few blocks from a former Doggie Diner on Geary Street, where as a youngster I went for French fries after swimming in the nearby public pool in the summertime.

Our icon, our hero, in my pterosaurs metamorphosed into mythic chimerae, genetically sampled from fossilized memories and grafted onto the present. Is the Dog the icon, or the man who brought him to life? I have no answer to this, because the idea overtook me completely. The icon itself, with its Mona Lisa smile, begged representation.

Among the Theme Camps which have spored from dozens to hundreds, among the busy art cars and luminescent costumes, fire displays and pounding rhythms, the famous dog heads were quiet guardians, soaring and watching over all the craziness. Come and reflect, confess your dark thoughts, they beckoned.

This was also, coincidentally, an experiment with kinetic shade structures. The weathervanes, bolted to car axle shafts and mounted on wood poles dug into the ground, tracked the wind very well, and resisted blowing apart in big winds (a prototype -- see pic at bottom of page -- resisted damage from July 4th to the end of August).

Around the support poles I put five-foot-long, pink straw-stuffed canvas pillows shaped like hot dogs, for people stopping by the piece to use as a resting place from which to view the Man and the other installations in the Wheel of Time.

Packed up and ready to burn

Flaming out

Yonder Gypsy wagons, car bed, CWU domes

Charlie Gadekan, giant running canvas, Illumination Village

Michael Christian, Orbit One

"What magnetism drew these quaking ruined creatures into this orbit?"

Pirate Jenny, Ship of Desires

Seemen, Butchertown, Mark Perez, Kal Spelletich, Johnny On It, Bill Carson at Butchertown

Hovercraft

Hovercraft taking off out near 2:00 on the last day of the event. Note the people holding the ropes, ready to sling the craft off onto the playa. Made from upside-down inflatable raft, plywood, and a squirrel-cage fan. It worked! (Unkown artists, but I'd love to give them credit here.)

Seemen, Butchertown, Mark Perez, Kal Spelletich, Johnny On It, Bill Carson

Rocking DPW cleanup crew accepting sacks of garbage at the gate -- one sack of your wettest garbage, please, only if you can't take it with you -- extra food and water accepted for the cleanup crew

After the Event

Water Woman, fished out of Fly Geyser... a tangle of rotting plywood and rusty wire, paint flaking into the water, basically a water hazard... two weekends after the Burn, propped it up, spent hours laminating scraps of wood around the plywood limbs to give some real womanly fullness to the wraith-like figure, and... we burned it, of course.

Two small victories for me... watching the ridiculous pissing woman go up in smoke... and, with tears streaming down, watching the remnants of Mauricia's beautiful cafe artwork from last year parade around the burn in an impromptu DPW puppet show... the last of the friendly alien figures and jumping sheep... at last in the flames... a flaming sacrifice to dissolve all the bitterness... you had to be there...

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1999 Burning Man Artwork & Theme Camp Proposal
Last revision 07-10-1999
Previous: 1996, 1997, and 1998

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(Combined) Artwork & Theme Camp Questionnaire
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General description:

Trapped in a World they never made... the land that Time forgot...
Flying Dinosaurs! represents the world of the first vertebrates to 
achieve flight. Pterosaurs (Greek for Winged Lizards) evolved 
contemporaneously with the Dinosaurs in the late Triassic era, 
225 million years ago, and thrived for 140 million years. Pterosaurs
patrolled the ancient seas of Nevada in search of aquatic food, 
much as the pelicans of Pyramid Lake in the present day.

The primary installation is a Pteranodon with a 30-foot wingspan. 
Pivoting about a central support, like a weather vane, it will swing 
around to face the wind direction, beating its wings over the 
primordial sea. Participants can climb aboard and operate the 
articulated wings of the Pteranodon, beating them up and down as if 
to rise from the playa.

The installation also pays tribute to Leonardo da Vinci's attempts 
to conceptualize mechanical flight in his sketches and writings, 
ideas which lay dormant for 400 years until flight became a reality.

The installation is planned for the Primordium sector of the Wheel of 
Time. Roving Pterosaur kites and a sail-driven dinosaur on wheels may 
also appear.

If we can manage to make these from non-noxious fabrics and materials 
(rather than nylon & fiberglass) we may want to burn them late Saturday 
night, after parading them around on high sticks. Art-car and air-space 
requirements of the project will be followed.

If we get really ambitious, we may build a **large** wooden dinosaur on
wheels. Supersaurus, for instance, was estimated to be 130 feet long.
Maybe next year...


I've applied for registration for this as a Theme Camp (near 02:00 Neptune)
near CWU and Yonder Camp. Plan is to fly the kites a few hundred feet out
onto the open playa. We don't need to be along the Esplanade, but we need
playa access, so we want to be along the last eastward spoke, at 02:00.
The camp will have a hangar-like tent for working on and displaying the 
pieces.


Questionnaire:

What will the they look like?
	sort of a hybrid of Leonardo da Vinci & Dr. Seuss

What will your camp look like?
	absolute prehistoric wreckage

What is your theme camp or village called?
Tomales Bay Explorers Club

Are you interested in placement in: [required]
  a loud area
x a quiet area
  center camp

How many people will be participating?
10

You will arrive on the playa on what day ?
Monday, August 30th

Have you been to Burning Man in the past?
x Yes
  No

How many times?
3 to 5

Have you participated in a project before?
x Yes
  No

If you have, doing what?
Free Mass Shower
Center Camp structures
Fly Ranch remodeling
Water Events
DPW
Pedal Camp logistics

What was the project's name?
Free Mass Shower ('96), Windy City ('97), Free Mass Shower ('98)

Were you mapped or informal?
x mapped
  informal

Who was the contact person?
Bob Stahl; Karl Beckmann in '96

Will you have sound amplification?
  Yes
x No

How many (if any) generators will you bring?
1

How many large vehicles (RVs, trucks, buses) do you expect to have?
0

How many smaller vehicles?
6

Are you building a stage?
  Yes
x No

Briefly describe your visual environment / 
Describe your art installation in as much detail as possible 
(Approximate size, materials and technology being used, movable parts, etc.):
- see http://home.pacbell.net/burn1999..htm
- 100' diameter space for stationary Ptterosaur installation on the 
  Wheel of Time; piece will cover a circular area 50' diameter,
  and should have additional viewing space around it
- couple hundred feet of open space neeeded to fly kites on open playa
- flock of up to 10 Pterosaur kites, fllying all day (wind permitting)
- handmade; width 8' to 20'
- will attempt to use canvas & wood
- may use synthetics & fiberglas, in whhich case kites won't be burned
- will fly on appx. 200' of rope, usingg screw anchors to tie down
- anchors and ropes will be flagged at  ground level
- tentative: full wood scale model on wwheels of another dinosaur or two
- 50' x 100' space for camp

Describe your interactive element:
Imagine being a tiny primitive mammal from ancient times, stalked by 
giant flying reptiles casting grim shadows upon a flat expanse. 
I expect that the sight of a minion of Pterosaurs will strike 
particularly primal chords in the psyche of onlookers.

Briefly describe your concept and theme:
Flying Dinosaurs! This will be as much an art installation as a theme camp,
but I expect to be building, repairing, and displaying dinosaur kites (and
tentatively other dinosaur stuff) on the street frontage. Location: near
02:00 Neptune. Will fly kites on open playa.

Briefly describe how you intend to clean up after the burn:
Probably just camping gear & kites to be picked up; if we build a bigger
wood dinosaur, it will be burned late Saturday night at the Man. After the
burn, we'll clean up our camp and help rake ashes and debris elsewhere.

Are there other groups you need to be placed near?
Cultural Workers Union
Yonder Camp
(near 02:00 Neptune)

What is you website address (if any)?
http://www.sirius.com/~bobstahl/burn1999.htm

Would you like your project to be listed on the web site?
x Yes
  No

If yes, describe your project in two brief sentences:
The Tomales Bay Explorers Club presents...Flying Dinosaurs!
Trapped in a world they never made... the land that TIME forgot... the Playa
is the Playground of The Giants!

contact name:
Bob Stahl

email address:
bobstahl@sirius.com

home phone:
415-648-0997

message phone:
415-663-1651

fax:
xxxxxxxxxxxx

address:
Bob Stahl
PO Box 690
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956