![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() A unique facet of what is known as Black Rock City is not simply that it is dis/assembled in a desert region, but that it recurs on a playa, the ne plus ultra of deserts. The location of this event in this desert has had a shaping impact on Burning Man as a gathering, a city, an organization, and a transnational cultural movement. In the process, a provisional framework is suggested for the study of transformative events.īurning Man is an artistic community event that has been dis/assembled in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert every summer since 1990. Adapting Foucault’s six “principles of heterotopia” and modulating Victor Turner’s “liminality,” the article navigates the hyperliminal dynamics of Burning Man. If Burning Man is transformative, this is therefore an enigmatic aesthetic. This hyperliminal weave is redolent in a complex ethos known as the “Ten Principles.” Informed by Foucault’s ambiguous entry on heteroclite spatialization, the article explores the paradoxical “other space” of Burning Man in which the “default world” is simultaneously neutralized, mirrored, and resisted. With the shortcomings of the romantic-utopian “transformational festival” label identified, the article considers Black Rock City as a heterogeneous threshold and contested space. An ephemeral community installed annually in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, Burning Man is an exemplary evental heterotopia. The concept of heterotopia is adapted to comprehend events with intentional transformational agendas. ![]()
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