Burn
Day
During the day, the installation provided restful benches in the shade, protection from the sun. Participants could sit, relax, and enjoy the sound of live lightning strikes. Crackles and pops are most common during the day.
Bike racks provided a place to store bikes that lacked kick-stands. Meanwhile, Shelly can be seen in the background doing a MOOP (matter out of place) sweep.
The dust of the playa turned the black tarps brown, except where the wind beat the tarps against the conduit and ratchet straps.
Night
A fellow burner rolls by on their bike. The city lights in the background, and the French interpretation in focus.
Our camp mates joined us at Whispers of a Distant Storm mid week. Paul explained how the installation worked and the nuances of how it was built (and the backups because so many things don't work when you get it on the playa!)
Maintenance
We'd check on the installation 1-2 times per day to ensure everything was in good working order and do MOOP sweeps (matter out of place).
Mid week, Paul swapped the radio battery. He calculated that one would last the whole week, but he brought a backup to swap mid week to be safe. Most of the installation was solar powered and ran off of deep cycle batteries, but the VLF receiver had its own battery to limit interference.
Gifting Pendants
Pendants were given to new friends, old friends, and our dear playa family
Bad behavior
During the week, the installation had 3 instances where it was defaced. Someone wrote on a bench using a large black paint pen, someone wrote on the side of the poem, and someone wrote on the panel below the English scientific description.
Damaging art at Burning Man without the consent of the creator is inappropriate and shitty. Artists spend a lot of time, money, and energy bringing their passions to share with the community. Installations should never be vandalized.
Without condoning the action, the content in the third act of vandalization was interesting, as it contained more detailed scientific information about the rare whistler waves. At least this one was in the spirit of the installation and we imagine someone giving a "science lesson" to a group of people as they wrote on the panels.
