A Russian Artist Proposes Massive NASA Space Blanket Installation for Burning Man Festival

Russian artist Alexander Shtanuk has established a crowdfunding effort to flip NASA’s metallic crisis blankets into an enormous art at this season’s Burning Man festival.

The artist has established a fundraising campaign on crowdfunding website Indiegogo to raise $17,500 to bring the Blanket installation to Burning Man, taking place in the Nevada desert from 26 August to 4 September 2018.

His proposal involves joining together a string of NASA’s space sheets, which the US space agency created in 1964 from a reflective material that provides insulation.

Measuring 2.1 from 1.6 meters, they are intended to be used to warm people up in emergency situations and now are generally awarded to runners following races.

Shtanuk plans to utilize reinforced tape to make a huge square version that spans 100 meters each side. It would be permitted to billow in the end, casting a shadow over a sizable section of the desert so visitors could rest in the shade. Alternatively, it might be placed onto the sand and also used as a seating area.

“The Blanket will constantly be changing its shape from the ability of wind, taking different surreal kinds — waves, mountains or any giant sculptures that are amazing,” said the announcement on the project’s fundraising page.

“During the hot day room under the Blanket will be used as a refreshing and comfy rest place, where anybody can unwind, cool, and have a rest or dancing.”

At night, the artist plans for the installation to take on an entirely different function. He guesses participants dressed in suits featuring electroluminescent cable — also called el-wire, and made by coating aluminum cable a glow-in-the-dark phosphor.

They’d then crawl beneath the blanket,” creating an effect of oceanic bioluminescent plankton or moving waves of equalizer.”

Funds for the project will go towards materials, renting a room to assemble the piece, hauling it from Russia to Burning Man, as well as equipment rental.

So far, a total of $720 was increased by 28 backers.

Burning Man attracts 70,000 visitors annually, and its community is responsible for building a range of elaborate structures around the temporary settlement called Black Rock City.

H/T dezeen

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Creative Twisting Wooden Pavilion Revealed By Arthur Mamou-Mani For Burning Man 2018

Burning Man festival has shown a spiraling wooden pavilion as the main temple to be constructed and subsequently sent up in flames at the Nevada desert this year.

Called Galaxia, the temple will be formed of 20 wood trusses that spiral up and form a tower as they converge.

The triangular trusses will create different paths to the center of the pavilion, in which a giant 3D-printed mandala is going to be put. Little alcoves along the routes provide spaces for people to write and reflect.

The structure was designed with the help of digital 3D-modelling tools like Rhino and Grasshopper. It references the literary world Gaia in the 1980s sci-fi publication show Foundation by American author Isaac Asimov.

“Galaxia celebrates hope in the anonymous, planets, stars, black holes, the movement linking us in swirling galaxies of fantasies,” reads a blog post on the Burning Man site.

“A superior type of Gaia in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Galaxia is your greatest network, the fabric of the world connecting living beings into one thing.”

French architect Mamou-Mani can be a lecturer at the University of Westminster, also has been taking classes of pupils to Burning Man for several years with co-tutor Toby Burgess.

Structures his pupils have built include the Tangential Dreams installation, one of those highlights of this 2016 edition.

 

Last year’s temple was created by artist Marisha Farnsworth and constructed out of 100 dead trees to highlight the “dramatic changes happening in our forests.”

 

It had been joined by an artificial tree lined with “light flocks” by Studio Drift and several more installations and artworks, some of which were captured architects and artists in presence.