Burning Man 2008 pictures & info on 2009’s theme “Evolution: A Tangled Bank”

2009 Art Theme: “Evolution”
Nature never made a plan, nor does it seem to copy very well. No living thing is ever quite the same as others of its kind. Charles Darwin called this Natural Variation. There is a kind of subtle chaos, a supple element of chance and change, residing at the core of living things. Our theme this year prompts three related questions: What are we as human beings, where have we come from, and how may we adapt to meet an ever-changing world?

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection… There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers… and that, while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been and are being evolved.
— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Now adrift in our own gene pool, we have encountered a new phase of evolution.  We’ve become a conscious breed of culture-bearing animals.  Black Rock City is a kind of Petri dish, and Burning Man is an experiment in generating culture.  We’ve learned that culture’s a spontaneous phenomenon.  It thrives as a result of numberless and unplanned interactions.  All that’s really needed is a fitting social vessel to sustain it.  This happens best within communities that harbor many different modes of self-expression.  We’ve also learned that cultures effloresce when human beings feel free to offer up their gifts.

Our theme this year prompts three related questions: What are we as human beings, where have we come from, and how may we adapt to meet an ever-changing world?