Mosaic Experiment: Defying Gravity
2015 Placement Map
ART INSTALLATIONS
ANTI-GRAVITY ELIXIRS
Anti-gravity elixirs aim to challenge the force of attraction by which our bodies fall toward the center of the Earth. The consumption of anti-gravity potions are the gates of which to enter an alternate world of possible impossibilities. By creating possible impossibilities, we enable ourselves to lose touch with the physical laws of attraction that bind us to reality, and unhinge fantasies of weightless existence of which evoke transformative change.
DEFIANT PHOENIX
“Defiant Phoenix” mixes Mosaic 2015’s “Defying Gravity” theme with the Big Burn’s “Man Effigy”. This installation is a family of wooden birds which will be set ablaze. Each reminds us to defiantly soar high above the challenges of life. Their cycle of "life from death" reflects our own experience from default world to burner community.
GALLERY OF THE FOUND
Gallery of the Found is a interactive gifting gallery for art and writing. Found in a tiny alcove of trees, the Gallery is place to discover art, poetry, crafts and writing all gifted by our burner community. The Gallery will also feature the Altered Book Project, a creative way for you to make art and poetry at the burn. Find us among the trees... bring or make something to gift, and hang it in the gallery to be found anew. Please, don’t be shy - take a piece of Mosaic art home with you when you depart!
FLYING BADONKADONK MACHINE
How does one describe a flying badonkadonk machine? It's mobile musical instrument that anyone can play (if they are tall enough); it’s mounted on wheels, so you never know where it might fly off to. You’ll know it when you see it. Play it! Interactive participation of this mobile musical art is encouraged!
MANIC DYSPHORIA
A stately willow with an impossible garden stands beside a clouded sky. The central tree canopy sways fluidly as an unseen breeze imparts momentum to the sculpture; its lifelike actions captivating in their apparent simplicity. The tree has surprisingly chaotic behaviors while still being structurally strong and stable. Lights flow across the limbs and reflect off the cloudy sky. The garden is beautiful but seemingly cannot truly exist, just like people can still hold beauty in times of seemingly impossible hardship. This environment represents the chaos and the beauty in which the severely mentally ill and those close to them live.
REFLECTIONS
Reflections is a wooden pergola with a rope suspended bed made of reclaimed wood. Like swinging on a swing set as a child, Reflections defies gravity by offering a feeling of weightlessness, happiness and flying while being safe for burner participants to hang out on and reflect. At night, the effect should be something similar to floating around in space, staring up at the stars.
TAKE MY HAND
Take My Hand is a passive interactive piece that encourages spontaneous moments of slow dance. Imagine as you are on one of your walking adventures to check out what Mosaic is doing, with a person you are happy to have in that moment - a friend, a lover, a parent/child/brother/sister, a new acquaintance, a crush, a recent stranger - and you frolic across a stand-alone space where you can sweep in and out of a dance at both of your wills. Maybe it makes you nervous, and maybe it gives you butterflies, maybe it feels like the most natural thing in the world... sway back and forth all night or until the end of the song.
Based on the artist’s fond memories of dancing with her father, Take My Hand recalls being spontaneously twirled around and sharing a dance, then letting it end as quickly as it came on with zero awkwardness. This project is being built in hopes to offer a platform to offer your hand to someone and be intimate with another human, the slow dance way.
TARDIS (BIGGER ON THE INSIDE)
We'll be making a tardis out of plywood with mirrors (some of them carnival style) lining the interior walls and solar lighting from the edges. The idea is to create a multi-angled infinity mirror effect in which a person can view themselves in ways they were never previously capable. Perhaps even realizing like a Tardis, they too are bigger on the inside.
TEMPLE OF UNOBTAINABLE EXPECTATIONS
The concept of the Temple of Unobtainable Expectations is simple, really. Expectations are all around us and in our daily life. We really do take for granted that things will always be the way they are now and they won’t be. Each moment in time is different than another. There is no going back, only forward. So, why not go forward with a new direction? The direction of healing. The Temple’s goal is to help transmute the energy of guilt of expectation into a loving remembrance of who we really are. When we free ourselves of expectation, we make room to express more love and joy. You are invited to interact with the Temple by writing on the outside, or leave unobtainable expectations within on the heart shaped papers provided. The Temple is located in Sacred Grove, and the artist will often be nearby and invites you to reach out to her if you need help letting go. The Temple of Unobtainable Expectations burns Sunday morning as the sun rises.
THEME CAMPS
ASGAARD
When you feel consumed by the fog of uncertainty, when you feel driven to break free from the oppressors, heed the summons of the heathen horn. This is the home for those who embrace the white frost, a haven for the fighting spirit, consecrated by hearts of fire and steel. Harken the battle cries of our warrior brethren, the strike of the anvil, the lightning crash. We welcome you to Asgaard, to answer the thundering call of the north.
People can come and hang out, listen to our music, dance. We will be playing mostly Nordic and European metal as well as some other music. People are encouraged to express all of the 10 principles, but especially radical self expression.
BIPOLAR DRAGONS
The large art "Manic Dysphoria" is integral to the theme camp. It's expected that several people at once can be creating art of the dance through the movement of the chaotic willow limbs and playing with complex light patterns in the limbs via smart phones. All of these activities interact with each other. Cooperation tends to produce the most beautiful actions with the seeming chaos. The floating boulder is there specifically as an art play area for kids. A specific activity is drawing on the boulders with colored chalk. Hopefully this will foster the concept of being artistic without permanently marring outdoor beauty. More introspective interaction is writing/drawing/etc. on cloth that people can quickly glue to the tree trunk and roots. It is expected that there will be additional art to gift that helps carry the discourse about Bipolar Disorder beyond the limits of the Mosaic Experiment.
CAMP BLAST OFF!
A place made up of people that love space and all space related things. BYOA: Bring your own alien and no MIB allowed.
CAMP BYE FELICIA!
Camp Bye Felicia! is a camp with a unique attitude. We welcome the stranger as long as that stranger isn't a jerk. Anyone thought to be a jerk will get a very loud "Bye Felicia!" from us. We are a camp full of silly grumps. We will have odd and possibly bitchy art lying about. We are also offering an activity called Frankenfurries where you can sew together your own crazy creature out of various stuffed animal parts. We want to spread the message that even though we are at a burn, we don't have to put up with rude jerks. Our camp definitely abides by the Fuck Yer Day mentality!
CAMP CUDDLEFISH
Camp Cuddlefish is an aquatic-themed cuddlespace. We also run workshops, usually including Good Touch Games, an experiment in consensual touch gamification that also just so happens to make people practice good consent culture.
CAMP GROWN-UP
We are Camp Grown-Up, an art-centric group of cool people from Boston. We come all the way to Ohio to make sure hippies have the things they need to burn successfully - we practice radical over preparedness. We also have a sober adult person on premises all through the burn - so if you lose your shit we'll help you find it.
CAMP NEVER B IV - THE OFFICE
An interactive office, play, and teaching area.
CAMP SNAKE OIL
Camp Snake Oil will serve the finest in libations meant to give you the pep, vim, and vigor you need to promote health in the body and mind using the oldest and best science. No fancy double blind studies here folks! Just good old fashion know-how! So long story short, we're a bar, which promotes all kinds of interactivity in one way or another.
CAMP CLOUD CITY
Camp Cloud City brings out the kid in you. Imagine walking through the clouds into a space filled with toys from your past. Imagine playing games from years past. Imagine drinking tea from toy tea cups. Imagine seeing the stars and moons scattered on the ceiling from your childhood bedroom. Here you can escape from the hustle and bustle of your busy camp life, and retreat into your inner child - free of pressures, filled with joy and innocence.
The camp also hosts several art installations, one of which is the recipient of the medium art grant. You can write a postcard to your future self. Drop it into our Cloud City mailbox, and we will keep it safe and mail it to your future you. What would you like to say to yourself? What wisdom would you like to impart? What would you like to remind yourself? It's all here - waiting for you.
On Friday for a couple of hours, kids are welcomed to the Cloud City to play games led by one of our camp members. On Saturday for a couple of hours, we will be serving an adult brunch where everyone is welcome to participate.
Camp Cloud City serves as a haven. A way to ease your burden and take a few minutes of your day to let the kid in you play again.
DEITY CAMP
Come to Deity Camp and become a God or Goddess (your choice), complete with immortality ceremony, sacred geometry creation, and a pantheon sound altar that will burn after the effigy. We have some amazing never before heard electronic based sets ready to go with both high and low energy times happening. Come gather and worship around the fire alter, feel or dance at the sound alter, or join in on some cuddle opportunities, and don’t forget to say high to Z(i)us: God of the gods, God of sound, and God of cuddles.
FIRST FIRES
First Fires invites you to take a step back in time and a step into coziness. Here we celebrate the first fires of our civilizations that drew people together for warmth, comfort, companionship, and expression. We invite you to relax in our cave dwelling, and leave your mark on our time together by adding to the murals inside. Stop by any time, or join us for one of our events, including a Wild Things Tea Party, Open Mic, and Beginner Fire Spinner Workshops.
FIX YOUR SHIT
Fix Your Shit started as advice, turned into a philosophy and now it has evolved into a theme camp. We provided shit-fixing supplies, including sewing kits, basic first aid, things to keep you warm, and more. Need something fixed? Come see us, we’ll do our best to help! Camp FYS is also radically inclusive as our members are involved in a variety of activities, many of which are counter culture. We attend burns, pagan festivals, kink parties and are open to any and all people regardless of gender, orientation, marital status, and blood donor type. We are poly and kink friendly. Several of our members also love to hand drum and that draws in many visitors and people looking to get away from the EDM. We will have many drums with us to loan people and several people with large mouths to draw people in.
FROSTED KRAKEN COOKIES
Our flavor engineers have crossed the Indus River and climbed the highest peaks of the Himalayas to fetch the sacred milk of the finest Nepalese cows. We’ve traversed across China in search of the holiest of holy grains. We’ve sought out the oldest of Irish druids in search of divine swine. We solicited the help of the righteous brotherhood of the Canadian Maple. We even had some dolphin bits left over from our last endeavor. Look for our Cookieketeers making the rounds passing out our most sacrilegious treat yet.
HELPING HANDS SUCCORS
We are a camp offering a place to stay for new burners, who would like to already have connections before experiencing this wonderful life changing event called burning. We are here to offer help, guidance, answer questions and ensure the newest members of our community have a better burn experience. We also will offer a gifting tree or loan hub where people can register extra supplies they bring, hoping to gift or loan to those who have forgot, lost, broke, ran out of, or didn't plan on bringing. We all need a little help from time to time, and even the most seasoned burners can run into a snag while at an event. There is no shame here. No sparkle ponies, just inexperienced or uneducated future friends.
LAST CAMP
With an iron-clad pack-all-the-muck back out plan we intend on setting up a hookah bar for ages 18+. We will have 4 hookahs, wind covers for the bowls for safety, and a variety of flavors for everyone to try. Will have a pillow pile for sitting out to look at the stars or discuss all the things. We want to provide a relaxing place in a quieter area for folks to gather and talk or take a breather.
MOTHERSHIP LOVE
Mothership Love Command Center. Welcome Humans! We are honored by your open arms and profuse usage of this H2O substance you keep drinking. How weird. Come hang out and say hi to the Crew and come visit with the Mothership! Make sure to stop by on Burnday afternoon. Our crewmembers have fallen in love with this… grilled cheese concoction you humans eat. We will have plenty of these grilled lactose slices for you all. Don’t believe their lies!
NOTACAMP
We'll bring our big metal dome back this year filled with electronics, blinky lights and tons of fun stuff to do! Live music and DJs will be playing in the dome throughout the event. Want to play your own stuff or jam, then stop on by! We're also bringing back Mosaic Radio, 88.5 FM, so bring your FM radio to tune into what's going on in the dome. We also accept submissions for radio programming, so submit something!
PIONEER
Much like it was in 2014. We're going to have a book swap (leave a book take a book) under our -better built- front porch. We're also planning on having olde fashioned checkers set up for folks to take a siesta and relax ye olde pioneer style. On one of the nights we're going to have corn on the cob. The following day we're going to teach people what some uses pioneers had for cobs. Other than wiping their butts - making checkers, scrub brushes and other stuff Peppers brain contains.
PRIORITY5
Our vision is to create a space to demonstrate our camps incredibly varied skillset to the community as a whole. We plan on having a bar, to lure people in, and have a large scale sound system to keep them enraptured by our DJ roster. We have a number of fire spinners that will be performing their flow art, as well as hosting at least two events (a talk on cryptography and a bourbon tasting). As a whole, we focus on building strong social ties within the community by enabling unmediated experiences.
SACRED GROVE
"The Place Where People Meet to Seek the Highest is Holy Ground."
Our vision for Sacred Grove at Mosaic is to intentionally and energetically interact with a designated space to create “the Sacred.” In a Blessing Ceremony, all are invited to imbue the space with the gift of our own sacred energy, gratitude for the sacred energies present in the space, and an interest in mutually awakening and expanding these energies together in the space. We will summon within ourselves: trust, acceptance, and openness to change and expansion.
Throughout the course of Mosaic, we will work and play in that sacred space, and offer it up to whomever would like to do the same. As Mosaic draws to a close, we will offer a Blessed Ceremony, to conclude our personal experience with the space, and also take it forward into the next chapters of our lives.
We promote radical inclusion by opening the space to all at any time. We also open the idea of what is “sacred” to be explored by all who enter the space with awareness of its intention. We promote radical self-expression by celebrating all forms of self-expression as sacred. We promote communal effort by supporting each contributor in manifesting their offering to the Sacred Grove. We promote participation in the space through both physical and energetic offerings that will be described in an intentional schedule posted at the entrance.
We promote immediacy by encouraging experience that drops participants’ energetic expression/ reception down from headspace into heartspace and root-creativespace. In the same vein, we encourage participants to fuse any intention that they carry together with openness to whatever is present – to fully and sacredly experience the beauty of the NOW experience.
THE SECRET GENTLEMEN’S CLUB
The Secret Gentlemen's Club is an oasis of leisure and sophistication, a bulwark of civility against an increasingly savage world. Here a Burner can embrace their more cosmopolitan side, engaging with other like-minded individuals in an atmosphere of refinement and urbanity.
Whether enjoying liquid refreshments lovingly concocted by one of our expert cocktail craftsmen, playing one of our outsized lawn games, voicing their innermost thoughts through participatory art installations, testing their skills at classic arcade machines, or simply engaging other Secret Gentlemen (keeping in mind that ladies can be the most secret gentlemen of all) in scintillating conversation, Mosaic participants will find The SGC a most welcoming environment for expression, repose and intellectual edification.
Proper attire required (or will be provided).
SKRAMBLES**!*
Born from confusion and tempered by mild incompetence. Home of the world famous "Now we dance! Now we fight!" Dance/Fight party (now with fewer stuffed animal related injuries!). Absolutely no eggs. All hail String.
SPIRIT ILLUMINATIONS
We believe in creating a space where a person’s body, soul and spirit are free to connect to the Creator of the Universe. We provide a safe place where one can interact with the spirit through creative art, dream interpretation, readings, and healing.
SUMMER CAMP REJECTS PART DEUX
Were you the outcast at summer camp when you were a kid? Now you can be the popular one! This camp is for all of us who were not accepted. We will have interactive projects such as coloring books, fabric paints, beading and LEGOS! We will be hosting a Lego Build Party on Saturday from noon to 3 PM. Dragoon DailyFlame, camp mascot and all around good Dragon will also be in attendance.
SYNCITYUM
An Ann Arbor/Detroit based theme camp with bar, sound and whatever fire Ohio allows us to bring.
UNDER SEAGE
Under Seage is collaborating once more with a bunch of wonderful people and camps to create Ocean Motion Village! With Art, Music and an interactive space for performance, spiritual expansion, TED talks and cuddle space, if you are not having fun, you're doing it wrong! So come play and learn.
WHITE RABBIT
White Rabbit offers a safe, chill space to enjoy. We have gallery space to display art. Art supplies and paper to create art. Hookah. Quiet, and chill music, as well as an interactive art installation.
Many thanks to Lady D, our Placement lead, for her hard work coordinating our village. Huge thanks to Lindsey Pepper of Pioneer camp for the gorgeous graphic design!
Questions? Email our placement department at placement[at]mosaicexperiment[dot]com.
ound offering help to their fellow participants; DPW burning as they swing hammers and yell “get off my lawn” to the same hippies that they so lovingly embrace in the next moment; gate volunteers burning as they accept your bribes and give you your wristband (after making you sweat a little for it, of course); greeters burning with hoots, hollers, and hugs that we all made it home safe; and the countless others volunteering to burn and burning to volunteer. In my misty eyes, I remember why I feel so strongly about volunteering- it’s because I feel so strongly about burning. To me, volunteering is burning. In these exciting times pre-event, as Mosaic’s volunteer coordinator, it is easy to get caught up in the blank spaces of our volunteer shift schedules… but then I get reminded to think about why I love volunteering and what volunteering at burns has given to me. I remember that this community provides, and I am forever grateful that I get an opportunity to provide to it.
Consent is an important discussion to have because we are generally a gifting, loving, sharing group. It is very easy to take that for granted without realizing when we do so. Generally when consent culture is discussed the focus is on sexuality, but it has a much larger scope.
In a nut shell, the topic of consent is growing in visibility in our community. Many feel it should become the 11th principle of Burning Man and all communities who follow the principles. In order to grow, adapt, and share our philosophy, we need to come together and install the principle of consent in all we do. Only this way will we be able to sustain as a community and educate those who desire to call our community home.