MOTHERSHIP LOVE: The Story of our Effigy

"Mothership Love" is Mosaic Experiment's official effigy for 2015, selected by our Art Grants Committee because its design so perfectly fits this year's theme "Defying Gravity."

This week we've been fortunate to get a few moments with Osito (Thaddeus Micelli), project manager/coordinator of the effigy team, to discuss the inspiration and efforts involved in making this artistic dream become reality. The effigy team is hard at work designing and prototyping what will soon be the final centerpiece we set fire to Saturday evening during Mosaic.

Where you living these days, Osito? Osito: Ypsilanti, Michigan

When was the first burn you ever attended? My first burn was Lakes of Fire 2013: Superstition. My wife Kyrie and I found out about the burner community from a friend who had gone the previous year to Lakes of Fire.

Tell us a little bit about your effigy project, Mothership Love: Mothership Love is a kinetic art piece that gives a peek into the wonder of space and the universe, and offers to teleport you away. We want to truly defy gravity and show the rotation of the planets. For years, we at Mothership Love have sent out a signal into the night sky, across all frequencies, and through all known languages, and we have finally heard back. For the first time, we bring visitors from another world to our planet’s humble surface.

What inspired you to build it? For me this piece comes from a yearning to continue creating art within this culture. It is very much a culmination of the past three years of my life and this adventure being a 'burner'.  After the Tree of Life, my wife and I started small with our first theme camp (Treasure Island), evolved into our first art grant/project (Snatch-n-Balls) and escalated to creating the effigy for Mosaic. This community continues to show what is truly possible when the right energy is put into this reality. I only wish to continue this tradition and inspire the next person to shoot for the stars.

How much time have you put into creating the effigy so far? It's really hard to put an exact amount of time. It all sort of starts to blend together. A number of hours have been spent just in group conversation discussing schematics, issues, organizing events, etc. Every weekend since we were granted the effigy has been spent at one of our build sites and will continue throughout the month of September.

Fundraising, although easy enough to set up online, takes a lot of time and energy to properly hype/advertise online. Big kudos to the Mosaic leads and volunteers that spend countless hours making sure we all know what's going on!

So we know you're not doing this all by yourself.  Who are you collaborating with and what are their roles? None of this would be possible without the help from my core team:

Aiyami (Spidermonkey): Skilled chemist by trade and Fire Lead for our effigy. Excellent knowledge of creating and burning stuff. Methodical burn designs will ensure this is one effigy you will not want to miss. One half of our mad creation team!

David Yates (Total Neglect): Design lead and engineering specialist. Brings years of experience with woodworking and fires. I'm 100% sure that this man could make anything work with enough time and tools. The other half of our mad creation team.

Kyrie Micelli (BrattyCakes): The yin to my yang. Community event organizer and overall human networker. A lot of our presence online and our fundraising event at Necto is due to Kyrie's help along with helping keep me organized and on track. Cannot thank her enough.

Although our core team is small we have been lucky to have others come to our assistance. Necto nightclub in Ann Arbor has been generous enough to offer their downstairs area (the Red Room) for our local fundraiser along with some excellent local talent. Mixtape, one of our DJs for the fundraiser, has also greatly contributed to Mosaic with his image designs and other media that will be released related to the event.

Also, our friend Jon: Our build site would not be possible if not for his generosity (and overall curiosity) of the Mothership Love effigy. The tools and space available have greatly helped in the completion/burning of the scale project and translating that to the main burn. I also have enjoyed an amazing meal or two at their place and I'm humbled by their generosity.

What kind of roadblocks and challenges have you run into so far? One of our biggest challenges is making sure that our burn effects work as we have initially planned. So far, we have successfully recreated this in the scale model and look forward to hammering out the rest. If you're coming to our Mothership Love-raiser, you'll get to see what we mean!

Other challenges have been organizing people/time to make the builds happen, sourcing parts for the build at a reasonable price, keeping the community engaged and participating and making connects with people who can assist us with some of our harder components. We have been lucky enough to make all of these happen with a little luck and a good amount of hard work. Again, none of this would be possible without the help from the community.

Any words of advice for artists wanting to make their own project for a future Mosaic Experiment? I would definitely not take on such a large project unless you've worked on some other small ones first. The experience our crew gained on our first group project (Tree of Life, Lakes of Fire 2013) and our own personal projects since then have given us the building blocks to base our build and timeline on. It doesn't hurt to know how to use a power tool either.

Be ready to make changes. Things come up. Stuff doesn't fit or pan out. You're going to make a few revisions to your design before it gets burned. The board game Monopoly was revised over forty times before it was up to snuff. It's not a bad thing. It's just evolution. Roll with it.

Have fun! There's a lot of hard work involved in making your dreams a reality but above all make sure you and your team are enjoying what they're doing.

Got a link to your project you want us to send people to? Maybe the fundraiser page? Yup! Mothership Love Indiegogo Page

THAT'S IT, FOLKS! Osito had to go back to work!

For those wanting to help gift this project in either physical or financial ways, we highly recommend you attend the Mothership Love-Raiser this weekend:

MOTHERSHIP LOVE-RAISER Saturday, August 29, 2015 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Necto Nightclub (Red Room) Ann Arbor, Michigan

$10 gets you in the door, and you can meet the Osito and his project team in the flesh, discuss the project, offer to pitch in however you'd like, or just hang out, dance, and have a good time with burner friends supporting a project of burnerly love! Of course, if you can't make it to that, you can always donate your cover (or more!) to to the Mothership Love Indiegogo Page. 

Mosaic Experiment 2015: SOLD OUT

  As of Wednesday, August 19th, Mosaic Experiment 2015 has sold out! This is great news for those of us behind the scenes who planned wishlist budgets based on selling 400 Adult tickets. This year we increased Art Grants and Effigy budgets, upped our firewood stock for all, implemented a Low Income Ticket program, gifted Child tickets (12 and under), and now organizers are busy bees getting infrastructure ready to create our community village. How will you defy gravity? Time to prepare!

Did you miss getting your ticket? Check out the Mosaic Ticket Exchange & Rideshare Facebook Group. To transfer your ticket, we recommend calling Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006. They are super helpful and quick!

TICKET TRANSFERS INFO: Tickets may be resold through the Brown Paper Tickets network. If you need to sell or transfer a ticket, you must do so through the ticket vendor. Once your ticket has been transferred, Mosaic Experiment will receive notice of the transaction. Beware when buying a ticket from an individual. Only the first occurrence of a ticket code will be honored at the gate. We take no responsibility for tickets sold outside of Brown Paper Tickets.

FIND A TICKET? Awesome! NOW read the Survival Guide. You MUST READ to attend... there will be a quiz!

SELLING YOUR TICKET? Do your part and make sure the lucky person who buys it understands what they are getting into. It's everyone's job to spread our principles! Download the Survival Guide in PDF, or send them this link along with their ticket info.

WHAT'S NEXT? Start preparing! Get your tents and gear ready for Autumn camping in Ohio. Figure out how you'll radically express yourself - with costumes? Performance Art? Service to the community by volunteering? Start pondering the Ten Principles and how you can deepen your participation this year. What's that crazy creative idea for an impromptu art installation you had? Do it! Want to organize a happy hour, a wandering karaoke tribe, an interactive gravity defying game? GO FOR IT. The experiment only takes off when we all launch it together!

See you on the strip-mine playa!

xoxo

Mosaic Experiment 

OMG! Immediacy Art Grant announced

INTRODUCING THE OMG! IMMEDIACY GRANT

Quick, quick! Think of best ART idea you can pull off with $150 by October 1st. (What is art? You decide!) The Art Grant Committee has $150 burning a hole in its pocket and we want YOU, clever procrastinating artists, to give us your last minute kinda mostly thought out art ideas for Mosaic.

GUIDELINES: We like general ideas that are concretely doable. We like philosophical statements. We like pictures. We LOVE art.

PROCESS: Send an email to artgrants[at]mosaicexperiment[dot]com by Tuesday, September 1st. That's all you gotta do.

#OMG! #IMMEDIACY #MosaicEqualsArt

Mothership Love-Raiser: August 29

[I N C O M I N G  T R A N S M I S S I O N]

MOTHERSHIP LOVE-RAISER Saturday, August 29, 2015 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

$10 gets you all this, all night

Necto Nightclub - Red Room 516 E. Liberty Street Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104

FEATURING THE SOUNDS OF:

DEZIGN | House, Classic Hip-Hop, UK House & Garage M I X T A P E | Cosmic Disco & Trouble-Funk / Soulful House EGGS BLACKLY | House & UK Garage

The Mothership Love crew is reaching to our friends and burner family to join us in a night of fun and dancing while supporting this year’s Mosaic effigy team. We will be beaming down to host an event in the Red Room at Necto in Ann Arbor pushing the boundaries of reality! We will also have our scale version of the effigy on site.

If you are unable to attend but still want to donate, please take a look at our Indiegogo campaign.

About the Mothership Love: The Mothership Love is an effigy project like no other! Using the power of FIRE we will make the fifteen foot tall effigy defy gravity in a multitude of ways. Utilizing science and ingenuity as our tools we aim to create a highly interactive and engaging experience before, during and after the burn.

2015 Defying Gravity Logo

Introducing the Mosaic Experiment 2015 Defying Gravity logo! Skennedy (Scott Kennedy) of Cleveland, Ohio gave his time and talent to craft this logo for use by the community. More on his process and inspiration:

I was asked to do my part in creating a logo for this year's Mosaic Experiment, based on our theme.

We talked about Defying Gravity, and Everyman made some suggestions for how that might look, and I ran with it.

The idea here is that a person with wings has leapt from a ledge, bridge, or tree into the air, surrendering themselves to the wind just before the incredible effort of flying, of resisting the irresistible.

Defying a force of nature is hard work, but there is a joy in that defiance, in controlling your own destiny for as long as you can, even if you know that eventually you will land, and have to start all over.

To me, that is what we do when we carve a space for ourselves to experiment with art and society - often walking a tightrope of regulations designed by the rest of the world to avoid risk and conflict so that we can embrace those things, together.

Without conflict, there can be no change.

And so the Defier pushes away from the cultivated, safe farmland for something stressful, intensely joyful, and all too brief.

Sound familiar?

See you at Mosaic.

--Skennedy

This image is available for any creative project your burny heart desires. Ideas include screen printing, stickers, etchings, engravings... anything you can imagine!  Several file types available here.

2015 Tickets Announced!

Did you get the news? Ticket sales have been announced! Tickets for Mosaic Experiment go on sale on Brown Paper Tickets on Wednesday, June 3 at 12 pm. For adults (age 13 and over), tickets are $75, and child tickets (12 and under) are no cost, as a gift to the community. BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE: http://mosaicexperiment2015.brownpapertickets.com/

This year, your Mosaic organizers are intent on making our burn even more incredible. We’ve got our minds on sustainability of the event, not just for 2015, but for years to come. Since our February planning retreat, we’ve been thinking ahead, making goals, researching possibilities, creating budgets… all in the name of planning a safe, sustainable, well-organized event where creativity and community reign.

Take a look at what’s new and exciting for 2015:

• A BIG INCREASE IN ART GRANTS! We’ve budgeted $500 for Youth Art Grants, $500 for Medium Art Grants (plus two fundraisers for even more funds, to be held in Cincinnati and Indianapolis this summer), and $2000 for Large Art Grants. A total of $3000 to support more art!
• MORE FUNDS FOR EFFIGY: We previously announced a budget of $500 for the effigy (as we offered in 2014.) Well, hold on to your hats, y’all, because we’re increasing that budget by $500... for a total $1000.
• INVESTMENTS IN INFRASTRUCTURE: Let’s face it. We need to safely shelter our fabulous volunteers from the unpredictable Ohio weather in October. We’re making sure that our front Gate has a shade structure that doesn’t fall apart, that our Greeters are sheltered from sun and sleet while hugging your necks, that our Fire Safety team has the gear needed to protect us, and that DPW (Department of Public Works) has the tools and supplies they need to create signage, lighting, and other common use areas. These tools, structures and gear have to be housed somewhere, and a central storage space maintained and inventoried by the organization saves individuals from taking on this financial investment and liability. It’s worth it, don't you think, to be able to reuse these resources year after year?
• LEGAL FUNDS: We’ve taken an important step this year in garnering legal counsel to help us navigate sensitive situations that impact everyone at an all-ages burn, to further investigate fire safety laws in Ohio, and for general counsel as needed.
• FIREWOOD INCLUDED FOR ALL: As you might know, our landowner prefers that all firewood be purchased from one approved source, and that no firewood be brought into Reclaim from across state lines (for environmental reasons). This presents a challenge. Last year, we budgeted $600 to provide firewood for everyone at the burn. Sadly, by late Saturday night we were all a little chilly… so this year, we’ve increased the firewood budget to $1000. Firewood will be freely available for pickup onsite to all campers with registered campsites.
• GIFT TICKETS FOR CHILDREN: No cost for child tickets (12 years and under.)
• LOW INCOME TICKET PROGRAM: Last but not least, this year we are implementing a low income ticket program. A limited amount of lower cost tickets will be made available, to help some of those who might have difficulty affording the increased ticket price. We love ALL of our Mosaic family, and are sensitive to financial issues. Please read all details & apply by June 17, 2015: Google Doc PDF

As our Experiment grows, we grow along with it. Each step we take towards responsible growth ensures that we burn brightly and safely together for many years to come. Want to get involved in shaping Mosaic Experiment's future? Check out our volunteer lead positions.

Interested in learning more about how planning, organizing and budgeting for a regional burn works? Want to read about last year's burn, and how we made some of these decisions? Check out the Mosaic Experiment 2014 Afterburn Report.

More questions about ticketing? Be sure to read the 2015 Ticket Information for all the details you need, and mark your calendars to buy tickets starting June 3rd at noon.  For questions not answered here, email tickets[at]mosaicexperiment[dot]com.

Mosaic Experiment: A burn for all ages

I'm often asked why we fought so hard to make Mosaic an all-ages event, and it only takes remembering my mother to realize how important children are to the sustainability and health of our community. 

Despite it being Mother’s Day, not a day goes by without reflecting all the valuable lessons my mom taught me right up until her passing just over two years ago. I’m forever grateful because she not only allowed me to become who I am right now, but actively encouraged it. She taught me that if I felt strongly enough about something, to stand by it with all my conviction as she did with her own beliefs. Whenever I’m in great need for strength and inspiration, I need to look no further than the beautiful woman who gave me life and raised me.

At Burning Man, the greeters mantra is “Welcome Home!” When I first heard those words, I took it to mean “Welcome Home, misfit!” It was an island of misfits in the middle of the nowhere. My people were there. My weirdos! 

At Burning Man, everything you can imagine is there, and if it isn’t, it will show up years later. I ran into people in their 70’s and 80’s making art, gifting food, offering water, talking deep philosophy. I also found a village called Kidsville right next to the Alternative Energy Zone. After years of exposure to Burning Man, these children will grow up to be the future artists, greeters, rangers, First Aid workers, city builders, event planners, and event producers.

We’ve heard every argument why underage children shouldn’t attend burns, and addressed them all.

It typically comes down to Radical Inclusion vs. Civic Responsibility, instead of Civically Responsible Radical Inclusion. You can’t cherry pick one principle over another, they’re all supposed to be played in harmony.

Radical inclusion doesn't mean "everyone can go. "It means "non-discriminatory access for everyone, regardless of your skin color, sexual orientation, regional affiliation, religion, race, or age." 

Civic Responsibly simply means basic infrastructure is put into place (portable toilets, event insurance, parking plans, emergency response protocols, etc.) Civic Responsibility does not mean “we are protecting everyone from danger!”

There is danger everywhere. It is the right of the parent to choose what they expose their children to, and the parent's responsibility to protect their children if they perceive danger.

Burning Man is a cultural movement, not an event. You can't change culture without breaking the traditionally accepted norms of what you expose your children to. You don't have to bring your children, but we shouldn't exclude parents who wish to.

Children will not be the future greeters, rangers, medics, gate people, and event holders if they are not included.

After last year’s Mosaic event, I saw some online discussion about the gifts we received at the event which “melted our souls.” It got me thinking of the most touching moment I had while attending Mosaic 2014. It was during the Saturday night burn, but wasn't the burn itself....it was this woman standing in front of me holding her baby. 

The woman was facing forward, fascinated by the huge burning effigy, but her baby was held over her shoulder, facing me...fascinated by the little glowing lights I had around my neck. I grabbed my lights and jiggled them which got the baby's attention. The baby looked up at me and smiled. I hit one of my light controller buttons making them blink, and the baby started laughing. Everyone was watching this gigantic beautiful art piece burn to the ground, but to this baby, there was nothing more fascinating than these little glowing lights.

If that mother couldn't bring her baby, neither would have come, and I never would have had that beautiful simple sensation of entertaining the mind of a child with my little glowy $5 light string, making us both laugh, which made the mother laugh, joining everyone's laughter over the collective joyous experience.

These endlessly curious little versions of ourselves will soon replace us. Curiousness, fascination by everything, wonderment about how so many strange things are possible, how are they done, how can we make more, do more, build more, and BE more? I was moved to tears because I saw myself, asking "what is THAT??"

I mean, really, I want to know, what IS that?

That is a mother, with her child, and they're standing with you at a burn, that's what it is. The burn incinerated the childish, and nourished the childlike. Our community fought hard for that gift. Mosaic Experiment will continue to protect it.

Open Lead Callouts are now live!

Want to burn all year? VOLUNTEER! Mosaic Experiment, the event, is the result of a lot of year-round work by Mosaic Organizers (also referred to as MORG.)

Some of the MORG work exclusively on site, but others work offsite for most of the year because, like so many of you, they don't want the burn to stop!

The MORG is not just an organization planning Mosaic. The MORG burns all year, resulting in Mosaic.

Burning year-round isn't just desired to create Mosaic, it's required! Mosaic cannot sustain its continued growth without the participants who dedicate their passionate enthusiasm to creating an even more awesome event.

Do you want to burn all year? Are you a wizard wishing to make Mosaic more magical?

We have many opportunties for you!

How will you participate?

Mosaic Experiment's Official 2015 Open Callouts Page

Bureau of Unclaimed Secrets

Name/Burner Name Havoc

Where are you living currently? Indianapolis

When was your first burn? How did you find out about burns? Burning Man 2010 was my first burn. I first heard about Burning Man in 2003, but it took me seven years to get my shit together.

Project Name and Description: My project is the Bureau of Unclaimed Secrets, an interactive secret exchange.

The Bureau of Unclaimed Secrets is an opportunity to explore and evolve thoughts and feelings. Part therapy, part interactive art, this installation allows participants to record and share their secrets. Participants are encouraged to write down their secrets on 3x5 cards (provided). The secrets are then filed for safekeeping with the Bureau, and the participant given a matching numbered tag, allowing the bearer to come back and access, change or destroy that secret. Participants are encouraged to gift tags to others and to come back throughout the burn to check on the evolution of their secret.

The Bureau of Unclaimed Secrets is highly interactive and often cathartic for participants. I love that the secrets evolve over time and that people can be deliberate and potentially strategic about who gets their secret.

Inspiration: I was highly inspired by the piece "Terrain" by Julianne Swartz. ("Terrain" is a site-specific sound installation at the Indianapolis Museum of Art that evokes secrets, whispers, and memories. The murmuring voices are largely indiscernible; however, in certain moments private intimacies can be distinguished, such as the words “I love you.”) The quiet, contemplative nature of the piece got me thinking about secrets and how we share them.

Time spent on project: For this incarnation, probably 20 hours of prep work, 40 hours during the event and 10 hours after the event matching people up to their unclaimed secrets.

Collaborators? Helpers/Assistant Builders? My fiancee, Chris Miller, was a huge help!

Challenges during the project: It's always a challenge to figure out the logistics of something like a secret exchange. Figuring out the mechanism by which people could give away a secret and let someone come back and claim it was a bit of a challenge, but once the idea of tokens came to me, it was just a matter of getting the materials and setting it all up.

“This was by far my favorite experience at Mosaic. There's just something so incredibly profound and freeing about this. Thank you both again for bringing this to us.”

Do you have a link to where people can learn more about your art? www.unclaimedsecrets.blogspot.com

Any words of advice for future art projects at Mosaic Experiment? Make a budget, make a timeline/plan, have at least one person who knows the project and can help you out in a pinch.

---

INSPIRED?

Start creating your own experience for Mosaic Experiment 2015. Check out Art Grants and Effigy, and sign up for our mailing list: [wysija_form id="1"]

Everyman speaks on bringing Burning Man home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y67XxbsW5Kw&feature=youtu.be How do we bring Burning Man home? Everyman, Event Lead, speaks about Mosaic Experiment: history, lessons learned, and the future of expanding burner culture on a regional level.

Hear about the humble beginnings in his Cleveland home - the origins of Mosaic Experiment are in the story of Reclaimed Rainbow, the first Ohio burn. From 2007 to Mosaic's first official year in 2013, Everyman explains the failures and success along the way. If you've ever considered how to start your own regional burn: watch this. Learn from our mistakes. Please!

Many thanks to the 2015 Great Lakes Burner Symposium for hosting a full night of incredible presentations about different burn culture sparks that have become works of art and community. You can watch the full night of presentations here. Mosaic Experiment is honored to be included.

Burning Man is not limited to Black Rock City. THIS is Burning Man. This is home.

Want to follow along with the slides from Everyman's presentation? Check out the slideshow here: 2015 Great Lakes Burner Symposium: Mosaic Experiment