From the theme camp registration questionaire, as composed by the lovely and talented Kyra, Official FleshLab Representative To The Teeming Masses:
*Briefly describe your interactive element:
A labyrinth of connected domes where you become part of fleshy experimentation.  An afternoon of foot-care of the playa-weary feet of Black Rock City including foot washing, lotions and oils and henna tattoing. Tactile boxes for touch and play. Planned installations far out on the playa that encourage play and dialogue between wayfarers.

*Briefly describe your concept and theme:
Flesh Lab is a place to explore the sense and perception of touch and the experience of being in one's body. The tangents vary wildly.  Flesh Lab is an exploration in touch, sight, and sound of fleshly delights, horrors and experiments. All things involved in the investigation of the flesh and things contained within are welcomed and coaxed from you.

*Are you connected to any other themecamps or villages?
No.

Camp Issues Building Geodesic Domes | Connecting The Domes | Dome Furniture | Camp Layout Who Is Getting There When? | Organizational Mayhem | Power | Bring A Bike | Fooding Other Creative Issues Propaganda Efforts | General Costuming | General Props | Activities For The Stage Burning The Stage | Henna Tattoos/Foot Washing & Messaging | Other Exciting Dome Activities! What's The Status On Gourlay's Hot Tub Idea? | Live Noise & Sound & Music | Sound System/DJ Issues Sculpture-esque/Installation Artwork | Roving Performance Art | Mechanical Mayhem

Building Geodesic Domes

Gourlay's design.

Gourlay:
I've been thinking of suspending industrial springs from some vertices and stretching cargo net on the springs.  This would give us
a "second floor" that would also be a gargantuan see-thru trampoline.  It could also be thought of as a hammock of orgiastic proportions.  Anybody know where I can get 20- or 30-foot diameter cargo nets?

Gourlay:
I had this dream about Burning Man that I think can be reworked into a neato idea.  I dreamt of having the camps connected in a way such that it was like buildings in Morocco are -- a twisty passageway of interleaved buildings.  It think it would be neat if shade structures were all connected in some way so as to make wandering through them like meandering through back alleys.  It would be good if the way of "connecting" them was to have covered "alleyways" somehow.  The idea doesn't work unless there are a significant number of significantly large shade structures in order to encompass a large area.

Earth:
We were at Home Depot today and happened across a roll of 4' x 225' jute (sorta like hemp or seisal (sp?)) netting.. Its a little narrow, but I think it fits a lot of my ideas for what kinda material I'd love to have.. They had a couple more and its supposedly used to keep hillsides from sliding.. cost 55$.. Its very rough material.... Im not really sure what we're gonna do with it, but I am currently picturing it as the tunnel material or perhaps other things.. I think it looks cool and it will burn nicely.. One idea was to cut it into aprox 15 foot strips and string these perpendicular to a single overhead pole to make a triangular tunnel.. I would love other (simple and cheap) tunnel designs.  I could also imagine such material working as part of an entrance, part of a stage, as part of a semi-shade structure... I think if we could find something like this that was 8' wide instead, it would be much more useful.

Gourlay:
The sense of combination that I'm thinking of could be accomplished by something as easy as having streamers (lots of them) go between the tops of the shade structures for each sub-camp.  While underneath them you would have these visual queues to indicate that everything touching the streamers was part of a single camp.  If the streamers were lit at night, this would be dazzling.

earth:
I am planning on some sort of tunnelling, hoping to have them carpeted with long carpet strips (hopefully obtained from a friend for free)..   The concept, so far, for the tunnels is a single header-pole, suspended on triangular supports, with the material tied out at angles to make a triangular walkway.  This should be the simplest and be fairly sturdy.

Right now we're talking about the possibility of building a maze in the center of a triangle of domes, at the center of which could be a secret space for making noises and stuff.  This would be constructed using pvc pipes connected to each of the 3 steel domes, with curtains and netting hung to make the maze/walkways.

Gourlay:
Also at Target were fold-up chairs. They had these fairly comfortable lounger fold-up chairs for about $25 which reclined slightly -- enough to induce relaxation and suitable for foot-massage purposes, but not so much as to make it uncomfortable to be looking at someone else sitting in the same sort of chair a few feet away from you.  These chairs are metal and nylon and appear to be well suited to harsh treatment, or at least to getting dirty. We had a dearth of chairs last year, so I think having more chairs will be a good thing, and it would be useful to think about having slightly reclined chairs if the foot-massage theme is going to be pulled off well.  It's likely that I will buy one.

Earth:
We found some chairs we really like at Cost Plus (a CA chain).  We'd been looking for a long time for chairs for our deck - and we are very happy with these.  They are wood and canvas with heavy metal fittings.  The canvas is attached in a way that is very sturdy, yet comes off for washing.  adjustable from straight upright to quite reclined, sorta low like beach chairs.  They fold very flat.  50$ each. This is a lot to pay for a single use item, but if you'd like an outside chair for home that is ideally suited to BM, and you want wood and canvas instead of aluminum and plastic...This is your chair.  We plan to bring our 2.

Rain:
cushions we could probably get at a thrift store cheep! if we (whoever) were toacquire cushions locally we would have to deal with getting them there, but if you think thats a good idea, i will hit the thrift stores tomorrow!

Earth:
Also.. please be on the lookout for very cheap, shitty, crappy, used, thrown away, carpetting.. nothing makes the playa a nice place to sit all day than a shitty piece of carpet.

Fire:
I'm interested in designing the camp before we get there. Having a pretty good estimate of how many cars/tents/rvs/domes/stages etc we'll have and designing a layout with entrance way and camping positions around the attractions and such.  It's pretty hard to figure it out when you're there...if you're looking to create something specific...I'll send my ideas on that next :)

Earth:
The big problem seems to be - Walls.. how to attach them, how to keep them from flying away or acting really scarey in the wind, and where to get them cheap, and how to make them look fun.

From the theme camp questionaire:
*Briefly describe any prominent physical features and estimate how much space your camp will need:
At current count we have 6 covered geodesic domes with interconnecting walk-ways planned. Four at 15 feet in diameter, 1 at 20 ft in diameter, and 1 at 30ft in diameter. 1 10x25 ft. shade structure. The small stage may be outside of these domes.  Very rough estimate of needed space 20,000 sq.ft.

Earth:
I am planning to try to come up with some sort of border markers.  One idea is 5-10' pvc pipes with a blinking LED cluster on the top for night time and a pennant (preferrably with logo stenciled) for daytime.  I'd also like to have some sort of entrance / gateway.... We like the idea of having private space built into the camp design.  As we increase the draw and public space in our camp, I think its more important to create spaces where folks who live at the camp can escape.  I am picturing that one of our domes would be public, 2 would be private.... For the camping situation, it would be good to get an idea for the rough number of cars and try to plan a hemisphere or circle where we could try to suggest some parking... the main thing is to try to make thursday and friday nights non-hectic as people arrive and accidentally and notaccidentally encroach on our space... the more we setup the camp to make it obvious what the boundaries of FleshLab are, the easier it is for everyone and keep the frustration levels down at 4am when a drunk 70' RV shows up and wants to plop down in the middle of our gateway....It would be nice to have some installations along the entrance instead of filling it with tents and personal items...  What installations might we have.. where would the stage go?

kyra:
i have the *beginnings* of a flag that i started for burning man 2 years ago that i never finished, due to lack o time for hand sewing. now that i have a line on a sewing machine (ding ding for those of you who have met our friend charm, who we are trying to get to burning man) this is much more feasible.  so if ya'll don't mind me making it... obviously, there can never be enough freak flags. =)

kyra:
on entrances and space markers; i've *always* loved those kinds of flags that are single poles with a flap of fabric running from the top to bottom. they're usually about 20 feet tall and look cooler than hell
| <-----pole and top tip of fabric flag
|\
| \
|  \
|   \
|    \
|     \
|      \   <-- fabric, except much narrower, not so much like a sail.
|       \
---------
|
-----------   <---ground
this could be very easy to make *if* i get my hands on charm's sewing machine. the pole could just be sturdy pvc stuck on rebar in the ground with the fabric slipped over it like a cover. if i get the sewing machine, i will try to make one and see how it turns out. the other kind of flag i adore are the very tall poles with a Y at the top which supports a cross bar that has fabric flying from it horizontally. those looks awesome, like kites. if anyone is interested in this, the more the better. ;)  they make killer markers for boundaries but are bright and friendly and easy to walk thru.

Fara:
if we do have a freak flag, i think that we should burn it.

Cathy:
I kinda like the idea of having a progressive set up to the laboratories, that way it feels like you're getting deeper and deeper into some wierd secret inner space, especially if you're in an altered state...

fire:
I really like the idea of NOT having the stage in a dome.  My reasoning is that my personal main attraction to the idea of a stage in our camp includes a mental image of the stage somewhat inset into the camp, but clearly visible from the road..so those passing by can see that there's a show going on...can stop for a moment and watch.  I think it would add our bit to the carnival feel that burningman gets at night.  People strolling down a midway with all variety of interesting things going on all around...visible from the road...drawing you their direction.  Then, once they're in our camp...we've got them...they want a foot massage..they want a tattoo...they want to lounge in a beautiful dome.

earth:
I like some clear identification on camps, something distinct, bright, tall... this could be a tower in the center of the public space, or it could be part of the 'entrance' design.. i personally like gateways, but perhaps it is more conceptual than physical.

Construction Crews (guesses as of now, please volunteer):
Big dome - Gourlay, Rain
Seattle dome - Scotto, Deb, Bug, Mantid
2nd small dome -
Stage - Earth, Scotto
Other domes - Earth, Fire
Shade structure - Kyra, Justin
Gate -
Boundary markers - All early arrivers (this task would happen first)

Right now we're talking about having a gateway into the camp of some kind; a stage off to, say, the left, with a private dome behind it; a triangle of domes off to the right featuring the large dome and two smaller ones, interconnected; and then private spaces for camps and such.  Fire and Earth are working on this.

Fire:
I think Earth and I are planning to arrive probably sunday (1 wk before the burn).  We'll be driving out, but have no solid plans at this point about what type/size vehicle we'll be driving.  We will certainly stay until at least Monday, perhaps Tuesday this year.

Kyra and Scotto have suggested that the Bay Area caravan leave either Sunday morning or Monday morning and return the following Monday or Tuesday to the Bay Area.  Paul and Willow are thinking of flying in the 27th (Thursday before the burn), and flying out the 12th.  Cris is likely quitting her job and wondered abt accomodations for up to a week in advance of leaving.  Amy should be able to fly in the 28th and fly back out the 8th.  Looks like Earth and Fire are planning to coordinate with the rest of the Bay Area contingent; also looks like Darin, Heidi, Tannar, Kia, and Aron (I think) are all flying into the Bay to join that crew.

Kyra:
one thing i was thinking while i was in seattle talking to quite a few folks was, to start creating a list of who is bringing what (ie: justin and i are bringing a truck, mike dome(s)), how much certain things cost (ie, splitting said truck between 8-12 ppl, dome costs), how said things are getting to the playa (dome, sculptures, etc.), who's performing what and what help they need, and other sundry issues which are currently slipping my mind. this will obviously become more valuable and pertinent as the burn grows closer.

Mike: One small dome, one large dome, transportation as yet undetermined
BayAreaCrew: Truck, shade structure, will likely need one or more rental vehicles (minivans most likely)
SeattleCrew: One small dome, traveling in the RV listed below
Bug/Peregrine/Mantid/Ingrid/Abrupt/Tonx: Some sort of RV style thingie
Earth&Fire: One large dome, two small domes, the stage (may well travel in the bay area truck), vehicle as yet undetermined
Jenny: Considering driving
Shrumdadi: Driving out from FLA

Earth:
I believe it will be necessary for FleshLab to make sure we have at least one generator there.  Bob Wallace (who will prolly be in Lycaeum camp) usually brings a couple and one of them is a really nice 700 watt honda that is really quiet and small.  It doesn't run a great deal, but I would love to have one of these.  A 3000 Watt generator would probably do everything we need and they aren't too terribly bad.  hopefully we will have the luxury of choosing something newer and quieter.. old generators suck.

Shrumdadi:
i just bought a house out in the boonies, and need to purchase a generator anyways. i plan on purchasing a new one in the 4000-5000 watt range.

Fire:
Also...thought we should mention that we're going to bury any generators that come near camp.  We'll bring shovels and  plywood to go over the top of the hole and we'll dig the hole big enough so the generator gets enough air.   If you were anywhere near Lycaeum camp and our friendly neighbor the Santo pollo generator, you know why.   You're forewarned :) .... It's usually a good plan to try to run the generator at specific chosen times when you've decided to light everything up or run the stage equipment, or whatever.  But you're not going to want the generator running all day and all night.

Earth:
We may need to think about power conditioning if we care, because generators can make lights flash at annoying cycles.  We have one
UPS we'd be willing to bring, which can handle a max of 400+ watts and would help protect the more sensitive equipment from the vagaries of power fluctuation.

Darin:
there's a catalog i was sent from a company called Real Goods that has all kinds of solar devices, among a ton of other "cool, hip, and feel-good" products.  they sell solar-powered: AA batterty chargers, guitar amps, laptop rechargers, flashlights (the thought of this makes still me giggle :).. even a solar-power misquito repellant (via high-frequency screech) that you hook onto your keychain.  they also have a website, with large chunk apparently devoted to solar-powered living.  i have no idea if their prices are "competitive" or not.

Gourlay:
There is a place in Boulder that sells ecological, sustainable, renewable energy solutions, including wind power, large solar panels, and various other energy efficiency products.   If you include the price of deep-cycle batteries, inverters, and solar panels, it ends up that the cost per 100-watt panel is about $800 or more.

Kyra:
another consideration i wanna put out is if it is at all feasible to bring a bike, i'd personally encourage it. especially if we're on black rock this year, i'm guessing things will get pretty far apart and bikes are great for cruising around in the daytime to explore new quadrants, scope groovy things for night time walking and phototours. fatty tires are best but if it's dry any bike can hack it.

The Burning Man Survival Guide will undoubtedly offer its own detailed suggestions as to what to bring in order to survive your stay in Hotel Black Rock.  In the meantime, some random suggestions to get you thinking in the right direction...

Fire:
The last 2 years
we've refined our meal menu down to ...
lots of sandwich makings
-bread (we bring 4 loaves)
-cheese
-lettuce
-tomatos
-mayo/horseraddish
salad makings (for the first few days until the ice runs out)
fruit
lots of trail mix
cookies
candy snacks
tons of various beverages
-water (1 gal per person per day + a 10 gal reserve in the bus)
-beer (3 per person per day)
-coke
-big jug of apple juice
-frozen juice mixes
If you want to bring a full kitchen setup...maybe you could also turn it into some sort of performance art piece...stand out on the main road cooking with a big chef's hat on ... handing out food to passing strangers.  Or bartering food for various other bm commodities.

Propaganda Efforts

Bumper sticker type items have been suggested; Earth and Scotto have indicated interest, Weird Momma has offered design services but no real fix on prices yet.  Tonx has suggested rubber globes with our logo stamped upon them, with the notion that ppl who encounter these gloves will consider them souvenirs as opposed to refuse.  Fliers have probably been ruled out, but a more elaborate zine-style propaganda piece could easily be put together, and would undoubtedly be considered souvenir, ala Hank's zine from last year (which we saw on the way home, middle of the night, at a diner in Vegas, in the hands of someone paying their bill ahead of us).  It has also been suggested that a Flesh Lab web site be prepared (for the viewing public, unlike this one).

Rain:
oh and speaking of latex gloves, I have access to quite possibly trillions of them, in blue and in cream colors! .... i was talking to paul (one of the lab dudes) about the fleshlab theme for burningman camp and he gave me a sticker which may find use at burningman, it's yellow with bright red print that says: WARNING DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU HAVE REVIEWED GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING HUMAN TISSUE.... one thing i bet we have (I havent gone looking just yet) is stickers...you know, like radioactive materials stickers, and biohazard stickers (and i dont mean the band!)

Scotto:
we should also have posters and such for that big bulletin board thingie, right.

Mantid:
i offer now the fact that i have access to tools with which i can create digital plates ready for printing.  The marquee is what sparked this notion (and I wonder if there aren't still some folks who also have printing hookups).... Anyhow, if you can find a use for such, im still aiming to do something largescaleish (for me) and in vibrant color.  Ive been thinking plywood sheets, and as i think there will be a moderately large truck coming from seattle, these could be arranged.

Gourlay:
I think it would be neato to make little pamphlets of the information on my dome web page to hand out at BurningMan.  I have already made little fold-up books (6 pages front and back) which occupy 3 full-size sheets of paper each.  They look quite nice given that they're printouts of a web page.

fire:
Perhaps even a barker in front for a while before a show is about to begin...attacting people's attention... or maybe even just an occasional barker inviting people inside?

earth:
We saw an ad for a company that does custom design temporary tattoos and we were thinking of picking a design to get done as tattoos.. the runs were something like 1000 tattoos for 150$ or so..   I think to make these of general interest, they should have some sort of BM-general symbolism -- so perhaps the man inside the biohazard symbol? (tonx's idea).. perhaps it could have fleshlab written on it?

fleshlab.org and fleshlab.com now belong to us, hosted out of neuron.  dbauler, andy corvair, and vinay have expressed an interest in putting up a propaganda page for the fleshlab camp.

Darin's got a logo page with various designs; hurry up and pick a few and we'll start using them for all kinds of insidious purposes.

Jenny, Rain, and Cathy have both volunteered to try to bring lab coats; Torin and Shane have indicated they may be able to as well.
Jenny:
Here's my goal: I'd like to arrive at BurningMan with several hundred disposable lab coats, one for each Flesh Lab resident plus many more for visitors to the camp. I hope to provide surprising and fun supplies such that each person can decorate and personalize his coat. Other Flesh Labbers may want to start collecting bizarre objects for the purpose of decorating their own coats and/or donating neato items to the collective supply closet. (Imagine, if you will, several hundred otherwise naked freaks running around the desert in wildly fun, official Flesh Lab(tm) Coats.)
Scotto:
i intend to blood spatter my lab coat, but i guess that goes without saying.

Cris:
i was thinking of trying to find mylar or some funky reflective materiel and makin some swirly capes w/big hoods

Dbauler:
i'm currently trying to secure biohazard suits, which i couldn't get many of but i plan to (heh) appropriate as much stuff of this ilk as possible before bm.

Gourlay:
One idea I took home with me from BM last year was that we definitely needed some coordinated lighting scheme to identify ourselves, either in large crowd or from large distances.  Earth has brought this up too.  I had been thinking in terms too simplistic.  In any case, I want to open the floor for discussing coherent personal lighting schemes to identify our affiliation.  I also noticed that some people really got into dressing up in lights, so I want whatever scheme there is to also allow for people to Do Their Thing with other lights.  One thing I want to play with is the new red/green/blue LED combo packages.  The main problem with them is that they are expensive and not as bright as others.  This might end up being a personal adornment and not a camp-wide thing, but it might be interesting enough so that other hardware hackers might want to use them also.  One cheap, bright, and easy possibility is to use the red/green LED's and make a device that smoothly transitions between red and green passing through shades of amber.  Couple this with many strands of fiber and we could really have something quite eye catching and suitable for camp-wide use.

Justin:
thanks to a couple supergeeks at work, the plans to build a personal lighting device for each person are on schedule.  i'd like to get one of these made for every one, although i don't know how feasible that is... they should cost less than $10 a piece, and will probably take the form of a bracelet with 6 blinking LEDs.  they can cost more or less depending on the LEDs used, red ones cost a quarter or so, blue ones cost $4.  there's a pic microcontroller with 8 pins that can be had for $1.80, which has 6 general purpose I/O pins, each of which can have an LED attached.  we're ordering the kit to program the things soonish, and will be able to begin prototyping the things soon.  the hardest part is going to be physically assembling the things, especially if we are going to make 50 of them :)  i picture getting some clear plastic tubing, soldering the LEDs to teh chips, stuffing that and 2 AAA batteries inside and calling it done, but that x 50 is a lot of labor.  it's also a fair amount of money, but i think if each person can pay for theirs it's not too much.
 

Jenny:
on a recent trip through the halls of the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine, I came across a pile of defunct equipment slotted for the junkyard. Most of the stuff was bulky and uninteresting, but i snarfed up several hand-held geiger counter units. Sweet!

Megaphones are definitely on the agenda.

Lab Safety catalogue.  Jenny:
Part of my point is (1) some of this stuff (like biohazard labels, stickers, bags) I can just "borrow" from lab (free!), and (2) stuff we have to order I can get at steep discounts offered to Howard Hughes labs.  So while my access to these materials is by no means exclusive, there may be financial incentives to letting me procure them.

Kia:
FleshLab also gives me visions of bubbling tanks of murky water containing something that looks liek it might be.. fleshy.

Paul:
i had an image of beakers full of colored liquid and weird things floating in them, and/or beakers with flourescent dyes under blacklight.  ideally, i've always wanted to get a large beaker, with fluorescent liquid, under blacklight, with a magnetic stirrer spinning the whole things into a whirling vortex!
Jenny:
A compelling visual image, to be sure.  Beakers I can get you.  Magnetic stir bars I can lift.  Even really swell fluorescent dyes are not a problem. Magnetic stir plates are a tougher order. :)

Kia:
Most light sticks only glow for about 2 or 3 hours, but you can find certain varieties (I had blue and green ones last year that were like this) that will last 8 hours or more..  Granted, it's still a big waste materials-wise, but it's better than nothing.  I do admit to feeling a little guilty carting home a giant box full of spent glowsticks and their foil wrappers though..

Rain:
ok there's this guy at work paul who i have told about the fleshlab thing and so he gives me stuff that will help us (he donated some
coomassie blue already and the last sticker) and now he has given me this old box from syringes that has this orange panel on the back
of it that read: "CAUTION: FOR LABORATORY USE ONLY, NOT FOR HUMAN IN VIVO USE" and it was brought up that we could scan that and make some stickers. i love stickers. ... I have some xrays of my head that were taken after a headon car accident I was in a buncha eyears ago that i have on my wall, i had wanted to make tshirts or something out of but I never figured out how to do it. i wonder how x rays would show up like say on the inside of a dome against a white parachute...

Earth:
I love the idea of a stage area.. building risers would require plywood and 2x4's, would be cool because we could burn it, and would cost aprox 25$ per 4x8' area  (we could try to bring the price down to 15-20$ per 4x8).  The benefits of a raised stage are many -- easier to have more people watching, it is an "attraction", we would be cool to have one, etc.  I'd love to build it when we get there and it wouldnt be hard to get the wood there given the type of vehicles that went last year and may go again this year.

Scotto:
i like the idea of opening it up to ppl from flambe and wherever else; i'd kind of like to have some kind of marquee thingie, similar to the marquee at the leri talent show, maybe a little bigger, out by the road or wherever, with coming attractions and times listed. i agree with kyra that we should plan to do stuff on the stage (and possibly all throughout camp) during the day and early evening, leaving the late night hours for wandering.  that said, i wouldn't mind coordinating efforts on this part of our shindig, much as mikeg has sort of championed the dome-building side of things, if such things are needed.  mainly what i'm wanting to do is take some responsibility (with anyone's help who wants to join in, of course) for seeing that some minimal lighting and miking system is available and for seeing that there's a reasonable schedule.  i'd also like to think about designing a backdrop of some kind, any of you painter drawer types want to help? ....  that said, when you guys hit the flambe lounge again, or talk to various bm-friends and acquaintances, let them know we have a stage open, and get email addresses when you can.  i'd like us to be in contact with all the various performers to try to coordinate resources for/among them/us.

Kyra:
i can also see another special burning man appearance of the 'leri talent show', but this time, complete with fire ball blowing (ha ha!). also crossing my mind was a sort of poetry slam, desert style (Whatever that means) but with all the poets around here that could be fairly kick-ass. none of this has to take place during the night either. if we were to have, say, the foot massage/mehndi day, why not have the spoken word jam then? many possibilities. i guess i feel, if there's a stage, it -will- get filled. we're a talented bunch of mofos, new year's taught me that. hell, i'll set something up personally for a one scotto show. and any sort of performance that can use my abilities i'll most likely jump on. as for lights/sound, i'm flexible. we can go au natural, or not. sorta depends on what/who gets lined up and what is needed to make the zoomatorium the smashing light show success that it wants to be.

Dbauler:
i have, as of this point right now, begun working on a stage adaptation of the abandoned hospital ship, which will include all the material i didn't run through scrytch. and i will simply say that the play will, in many, many ways, have much to do -- I'll even say *everything* to do -- with the flesh. surgery, body-memory, boundary, communication vector, alternate means of lust-protocol, meat-terror, and epiphinal grace. more than anything, however, the play is about jouissance.      but i've said too much.

Kyra:
i have secret hopes that someone will put on a production and say, 'hey kyra, wanna be in it?'. this would be cool. of course, there is always the voice yelling 'do it yourself!' but i gnow that i am a FLAKE in organizing creative endevours that involve anyone but me. there is also the thought lurking in the back of my head that i will write something and stage that bad boy & myself, and alone. i'd love it if the balls crept up on me to do that. there is the hope there that a stage area will be a push to do it.

Scotto:
i have some minor experience with stage gore and special effects, so could probably be of some use here.

Gourlay:
For a backdrop -- i have a spare 15-foot diameter white round parachute that I'm not using.  And I can get more.  It's thin, enough so to be back-projected onto.

Fara has indicated an interest in belly dancing.

Rain:
wrt stage, i will prepare something for a stage and will help build and finance a stage

Nozzle:
The other thing I am definitely going to do is a performance thing (on the stage) that I'm tentatively calling *Goddess Worship* for now.  Put your theme fears on the back burner, because this is designed to put your flesh (my flesh, flesh in general) into overdrive. I'd say more, but I can't :)

Murali:
I'm all for doing the straightjacket/freakshow/fire thing whenever y'all are ready.

Scotto:
i myself am planning a one person show; myself/deb/hank/aileen are planning a show.  that gives us, in addition to db's piece, 3 "plays" of some variety.  the possibility has been raised, though i haven't spoken in person to barb and aron about this, of also staging the fifteen minute hamlet (as seen at leri NYE!) as well.  but 3 plays in itself, in addition to belly dancing, would be very groovy.  my personal plan is to have scripts finished by the end of june and have july and august for rehearsals.  db's play will likely not get that kind of rehearsal schedule; rather, i'm guessing we will bang out some rehearsals when we collect on the playa, due to our catteredness and db being in iowa and such; but that is definitely just a guess, i'm not sure db has spoken much on this.  we'll also have murali's straitjacket escape act, and darin's "william s. burrough's reads dr. seuss" act.  - i will be staging my short play "this play is boring".

Collecting ights for the stage is  being handled mostly by Scotto, with advice and instruments courtesy of Gourlay, and Earth has agreed to construct the lighting board and figure out wiring issues.  We are confident we can do this without electrocuting ourselves or unintentionally blowing anything up.

Some kind of backdrop is being planned for the stage, which may or may not be black and may or may not roll up and may or may not have a slit in the center for making entrances.

Scotto:
justin and shrumdadi are both bringing microphones.  i think i'd probably like to rent additional mics for the week; i may look into this.  i'm thinking having four microphones would be ideal.  the camp sound system is something i'm interested in talking about actually, insofar as it could double for a stage sound system.  i'm also thinking that one or two ppl should volunteer to be the sound tech for shows, handling mic mixing, playing music if needed, that sort of thing.

No real consensus has been reached re the issue of burning the stage or other sundry items within our camp.

Henna tattooing, foot washing, and foot massaging is a popular idea so far.  Those who have expressed an interest in pursuing this include Rain, Deb, Fara, Nozzle, Cris, Mantid, Freer, Justin, and Hank, among others.

Nozzle:
I am ALL over this puppy.  I've even purchased additional toe-nail polish!  My understanding is to have a nice cool water thing where
people can soak their tootsies, and then either a foot massage (with oil) and toenail adornment, or mehndi (will massage oil conflct with the dye?).  Also, there's a large indian neighborhood here where I've seen scads of mehndi design books -- do we need these?

Mantid:
btw- Ingrid is a liscensed massage therapist and has excitedly agreed to coach us on the finer points of foot massage.  she knows her stuff!

Ingrid:
I'm way into the foot massage idear.  I'll be bringing sweet almond oil, plus essential oil to use along w/it for folks who are interested: lavender, sage, various sundry scents, and cooling, healing peppermint oil (yum).   I'll also be bringing some latex gloves (as will Kyra).  This is a great idea and although it may feel funky to use them, it's worth it.  I've used them on clients before, and will use them again.  I like to know that I'm not giving, or receiving anything, except luv (cheezy).

Cris:
i commit to giving footrubs, and a satchel of lotions for such.  i'm still working on a skin illustration process i am comfortable with, but in the end i'll try anything.  i've tried the henna pastes on my own flesh and it's nice, but its dimmer and thicker lines and requires leaving it on for a reallllly long time .. i'm hoping i can improve the technique or figure out what i'm not doing right.

Justin:
personally it's quite high on my list of what i'd like to spend my time on.  i think it will be a most excellent way to meet people and get to talking while they are getting a massage.  if we even advertise this a little we are going to have a line out the door for foot care, so i propose we do something similar to what they did at B-HOP last year... we make a list of things we'd like each day: drugs, martinis, jello, a bicycle, pancakes, stories, etc which we'd like to barter for a foot treatment.  i think we'd end up with a lot of drugs and would add a little interactivity from the recipients of the foot treatments as well.
 

Kyra:
tactile dome. we could let ppl in at night, cover it with a dark instead of light parachute to block ambient camp light and let folks wander blindly through various tactile experiences. that could be entirely zany. an entire wall of long sythetic fur made with a sheet of plywood and the fur fabric stapled to it, hung from dome vertices.
Gourlay:
I think the way to do this is to have 2 chutes on hand for each dome: the inner chute being white, the outer being green.  The green chute goes on at night, comes off at day.

Justin:
i think having a slideshow full of organs, childbirths, fetal pigs, etc projected onto something could go a long way for the FleshLab theme....creepy

Scotto:
anyways, if we have multiple domes, i think at least one of them should be dedicated to full scale lab style weirdness.

Paul:
re: domes, I do want to project shit onto the domes... as long as the coverings are suitable for that kind of thing.  Stu is interested in contributing, as i've said before, his disco ball, pin spot and some lasers that dance to music!  now that it seems certain that we will have electricity, i'm all for this.  we'd probably have to ship these things to kyra and justin and meet up with them.  i still haven't gotten around to experimenting with sea monkeys.  i'll report back when i do.

Nozzle:
I have some ideas re: the seamonkey project - not using actual seamonkeys unfortunately (it would just be too inhumane) - but a kind of kinetoscope thing with a light source in the center, and a band of images that circles and is diffracted.  I need to do more work on this, obviously, but  I've got some ideas dammnit!

Darin:
i've been toying with the idea of doing airbrush designs on ppl's skin. this would be a low-planning effort that i could contribute, consistent with the foot-washing/henna tattooing theme. i'd need to come up with viscous, non-toxic skin-dyes or paints, and either (1) figure out an electrical source (standard outlet), or (2) transport a 30 to 40 lbs tank of CO2 by vehicle.  i've heard horror stories of high-pressure tanks in sealed vehicles before, but i think my small airbrush compressor might have a rough time out there.  (perhaps i could invest in a cheap "garage-sized" air compressor and regulator? but those things are disgustingly loud.. hmm.)  has anyone come up with a solution for non-toxic skin dyes yet?

Earth:
I don't know how useful it is, but we have a totally extra overhead projector (and another that needs a new bulb and a fuse).  If anyone
can think of a fun use for this, we can bring it.  If you like it, we could negotiate you keeping it (them) :)

Gourlay:
However, I am thinking of obtaining hammocks and Mayan hanging chairs to suspend from 5 or 6 of the topmost vertices in the dome.  Depending on how comfortable that ends up being, I might sleep in the hammocks.  It seems that hammocks would be a cooler place to sleep than on the ground, and possibly more comfortable.

Scotto:
beyond that, i think i'm also interested in hearing what specific plans ppl might have for decorating the insides of the domes.  i know i haven't focused on that at all, which is why i'm interested to see if anyone else really is.

Gourlay:
I know the hot-tub idea didn't fly with many of you, but I've had enough positive comments about that idea that I think I will compromise and bring the pool but not the pump nor the heater.  That way we can fill the pool with water, it will not matter if the water becomes muddy since there will be no pump to clog.  Having a pool of water will be a nice thing, even if it is muddy water -- remember that the hot springs ponds were very muddy yet rather nice.  At any rate, this pool is large but inflatable so it does not take up much space while travelling, so it's no big deal if I bring it without it being used.

Dbauler:
i'm thinking maybe combining weird noise/drone/"challenging" music with cheap self-built instruments open for use. drums seem kinda, i don't wanna say cliche', but it would certainly be interesting to try using other basic instrument ideas, perhaps very simple electronic things, or horn/gong metal contraptions.

Shrumdadi:
i have a korg guitar effects pedal which is capable of distortion,chorus, flange,delay,and reverb. it is really for a guitar but ive used it for vocals and my didgeridu with alot of success. in fact, theres almost no end to the freakish spaced out sounds i can make with it and my didge.

Scotto:
i am remembering how that one camp next to the s&m camp, the nixon themed camp, had a prerecorded tape going on the whole time, and i want to do something like that for one part of the lab.  it would be themed to sound like you were in a hospital hearing different pages, except that the pages and sound effects would make it sound like you were in the world's most twisted hospital or some such.  Justin and Scotto have tentative plans to start on something like this soon.
Dbauler:
this would be a perfect example of long-distance collaberation and i'm so jazzed on making evil noise-collage it's not even funny.
Paul:
I would be totally up for making such a recording!  I am currently learning a new, easy and fucked up way to do massive collage cut and paste, weirdness with voice sample snippets.  Perhaps I could rent some recording equipment and hang out in hospitals for a day for raw material.  For what its worth, I could bring many recordings of strange and bizarre soundscapes.  Making musical recordings always takes me a long time, but fucked up weird shit is much easier, though not so pleasant to listen to.

Dbauler:
i've been hunting up information on noise-making devices, though the plan i got is still too fresh to see daylight. i would, however, suggest all interested parties head directly to: http://windworld.com/emi/, which is the web presence of one of the coolest magazines ever, experimental musical instruments. the aboriginal instrument is a bullroarer, which is basically a piece of wood on a cord, as explained by a def. i pulled from a crappy website that doesn't deserve mention: "The Bullroarer is constructed by taking a piece of rhomboid-shaped wood -- the smaller the wood the faster it can be whirled and the higher the pitch that can be achieved -- , piercing it at one end and threading a string through the hole. The Bullroarer is then whirled while being held in the players hand, and the resultant sound is similar to the roaring or thundering of animals, spirits, and their gods." there's a good number of variations on this design involving rubber bands and whatnot; see here: http://www.nd.edu/~sborman/didjeridu/technical/bullroarer_havlena.html.

Kia:
How about setting up some kind of environment where we build a bunch of trash-based percussion instruments (turning garbage cans into drums, old pipes into drumsticks, bamboo for clacky things) and allow people to whack away?

Jenny:
I am partial to bigger, thicker materials that not so much chime as gong, like old helium cannister havles (something like the bells made by Torrens which places like the Nature Company sell for god-awful prices). These types of materials have obvious disadvantages, like being heavy as sin and requiring specialized equipment (welding torches, etc.) to work with, but the sounds they make are deeper, richer and more satisfying to me than traditional back-porch chimes.
Paul:
i'm totally into finding big heavy resonate objects :)  or i should say, i want to be into it.  maybe, if i/we get to the bay area early enough, we can scour junkyards and the like for such things to haul out :)

Paul:
i think we can't have too much sound noise music and whatnot. we'll just have to make sure to bring plenty of boomboxes :)

Abrupt:
As Mac Support, I have recently become responsible for a large box of unwanted syquest cartridges (88 & 44mb). Being the analytic male that I am, I have in the past pried these things open to reveal the shiny and dense metal disc which is the actual storage medium. It is a few millimeters thick, about the diameter of a CD, but with a larger hole in the center.  These discs also make a nice clear tone when struck.  So, I could do the proper thing and donate all these to underprivileged schoolchildren. Or I could make windchimes to hang around our camp! The advantage is that these are heavy enough to become windchimes only with sufficiently strong wind, which it sounds like we will have in abundance. I figure I can space them in such a way as to determine how hard a wind is needed to evoke chiming, so it's not a constant, potentially annoying noise. But it should be a relaxing complement to generators and dance music, sez me.

Scotto has suggested that a maze be constructed in the center of a triangle of domes, and in the middle of that maze, we could set up a noisemaking/weirdinstrument section.  He and Deb are hoping to bring a xylophone.

Justin:
here's a short list of what i think we need:
  speakers
  an amplifier
  microphones
  a mixer
  some effects boxes
  an electric guitar?
  a CD player
  a tape player
  instruments
here's a list of what i can bring:
  speakers (2 yamahas they say they can handle 140 watts, but i'd say
            like 80 or so)
  a decent microphone
  a guitar effects box (distortion, compression, flanger, phaser)
  an amp, maybe
  the fatman, maybe...requires a midi trigger like a keyboard
  a didjeridu
  some drums
i have a mixer, but i won't bring it because i know the dust and dirt will thrash the nice smooth sliders and knobs...maybe we can rent on of these? :)

Scotto:
the only things on this list that i actually own and could bring include a portable CD player, a drum, and a bag of percussion items.  i have some relatively nice speakers up in seattle, but i would have to arrange to have someone else transport them, as i'm pretty sure i'll be leaving from the bay area.  come to think of it, i have some relatively nice ones and also a pair of relatively shitty ones that would still probably suffice.

Paul:
sound equipment -- i suggest bringing canned air as well, in case the dust gets inside of stuff.

Kyra:
just a reminder that the bm folks don't want camps to have sound systems over 300 watts, something to keep in mind when coordinating various speakers, amps, subwoofers and ground-vibration mechanisms.

Shrumdadi:
i also mentioned before that i have a huge amplifier (200watts) and a microphone,and digital effects setup. i will bring it, so anyone who would like to incorporate it into a show/idea will be welcome to do so.

Dbauler:
wally and i were talking last night and were thinking that it would probably be best to step away from serious 'ardcore dj-ing, other camps will probably have that covered... if anyone is interested in what i had in mind for dj-material (zero bpm weirdness) let me know and i'll send further info.

Justin:
i would definitely like to play some spacy fatman jams at night sometime as creepy background music, but i guess i could also record some here and just hit play while there...but it's knob twiddling in an apartment vs. knob twiddling at burning man.

Kyra:
just thinking of the tactile boxes (a very fleshy pursuit) and how there could be fleshly themes in them, like cathy's lizard skin and and and other flesh-related things! silk scarves, big feathers, hmm...

Mantid:
-scale model of the solar system (need a bike to get to pea-sized pluto)
-bright flashing light, buried under just millimeters of playa dust
-solar light with motion detector, illuminating some phantastic object when anyone got near it (adjust for minimal sensitivity so you neeed to get right up next to it) - this is so totally easy and feasable, but about $45 as cheap as i can see
-messages in bottles, perhaps an unfolding tale in glass arranged in gradients
-glass arranged in gradients.  i loved the giant array of cd-roms dangling in the breeze last year.  anything shiny like that will be much appreciated by wanderers
-I really cracked up last year when a large (nitrous-looking) balloon drifted into camp last year labelled "Zyklon-B".  I was so tempted to taste its contents.  What can we release?  Im endlessly intrigued by leaving treats and never getting the satisfaction of seeing the results.

Earth:
Ooo.. I wonder how we could rig up motion detector to some battery (buried) and when people walk by, it sets off a string of LEDs buried in the ground in a pattern, or, perhaps, illuminating a path or an arrow pointing towards something else.. buried treasure?

Kyra:
another project i'm interested in is fairly simple; i'm just thinking of placing chimes and other wind-activated noisemakers waaaaaaaaaay out on the playa. some of my most profound moments at BM have been far out, seeking WTF is making that noise? this is much more possible with the ban on cars on open playa. paul sz he's been thinking about wind whistles and the like so that'd be awesome!

Scotto:
my contribution to the "do stuff way way way out on the playa" thread: i totally have this picture in mind of setting up a small candlelit table for two with pristine china and silverware, bouquet of flowers, little tape recorder playing soft music, as far out as possible.  i'd use electric candles with leetle bulbs so they'd stay lit and kind of be a beacon, although those things are only bright enough to be noticed if you're already way way out there somewhere probably.  i'd put a little "menu" on each person's plate, which would have a little script that each person could recite if they want, thus giving them a chance to "perform" for each other as it were.  each menu would have "sides" on it instead of the whole script ("sides" are printed scripts with only one character's dialogue listed, with placeholders where other dialogue will fall, so that each actor only knows hir own lines).  it'd be elegant and weird, and hopefully no one would steal the shit.  i kind of doubt it; the ppl who make it way way out into the darkness at night seem to be pretty hep.  i'm going to start looking in the bay area for a small table/chair set that would be appropriate; if you other bay area freaks see something like that (hee), please ping me.

Deb:
I need cereal boxes of all kinds! I plan on eating as much cereal from now until burning man. If you eat cereal out of boxes: it would be oh so kind if you would save the boxes, break 'em down, and bring them to burning man where they will be recycled into a wall of shiny colorful cereal boxes such as you would find in a supermarket isle.

Mantid:
I'm talking/brainstorming with some other folks about feasability of a giant lite-brite type device.  Basically a large-as-possible light box with re-arrangable colored units on the front.

Deb:
i was thinking that it would be neat to come up with a chorale perpetual. I originally conveived this idea with regard to pianos but we wouldnt have 10-12 pianos to play with in the desert (though i heard they had some beat up ones at one of the last dealies). There would be a certain repetition of notes to play which each one would sing and sing and sing until one taught someone else that part and they took over. so people wandering by could take up a part for awhile and the piece would stay fairly constant except for the inevitable variances and modes of
expression. the members of this chorale perpetual, whoever they may be at the time, would be in motion, going up to each other member and
singing to each other in varying combinations. So one person may be singing a snowman (three notes a fifth apart) and another may be
singing, uh, a slide up four notes with each half note accented. Of course it seems standard musical key and rhythm would pretty much go out
the window and it would morph. There might even be one or two parts which when paired properly (by chance) would form a kind of harmony.
these would be for the singers to discover. so each singer would have a card which gave these loose instructions, the most important that if they take up a part they must continue until someone else agrees to take it up in thier place. They can communicate this to interested passer-by's by handing them this card to read.

Scotto:
pfly mentioned wouldn't it be cool to get a stretcher, and we could run throughout camp with someone on the stretcher, bleeding all over with tentacles flailing.  yeah baby!!

Cris:
i've been lame getting the choral piece out .. so far only to one person :)  but working on that .. like i said, it's so easy it'll be a cinch to learn.  so far interested parties have been deb, scotto, kyra .. but the more the merrier .. i'd love to have a bunch of folks who can sing the piece so it can be burst into real improv like.  i'd love to do this in some enhanced headspace too ..  i have the full piece, bass voice, & crappy scan of the sheet music in: http://neuron.net/~antares/projects/yum/

Scotto:
we came up with the idea while mikeg was in town of staging superhero/supervillain battles at various points throughout the camp.  this would be, to my mind, an ideal morning thing, when ppl are still a little slow and not expecting zaniness.  what i'd like to suggest is that everyone who wants to should design and bring their own superhero or supervillain costume.  i'm going to write up a script - it'll be bare bones, giving us all lines and a little "plot" but also giving us plenty of room to improvise as need be.  then we hit a given spot, go crazy, do some interactive stuff, in and out in five minutes or whatever.  totally goofy and fun.  (A number of ppl are in on this, details to be worked out as we go.)

Scotto:
another idea, held over from last year, is staging the anti-jello salad protest march from one end of the camp, while at the other end of the camp, staging the pro-jello salad protest march.  they would meet center camp, and suddenly a large fracas of some kind would break out.  again, probably another morning activity though who knows, i'm flexible!

A few folks have expressed interest in creating a Tesla coil, but no firm plans have been developed.

Bug:
well, yesterday i began construction on my main BM project, which is to be a "roving weirdness unit", or essentially some sort of a droid. It's based upon the chassis of a radio-conrtolled racing truck, which in itself is a pretty sophistacated piece of machinery, as i am finding out from assembling the kit. On top of that will sit an undetermined amount of sound and lights equipment, encased in some sort of shell. It won't be self guided, but rather radio-controlled, with one doing the driving, and another working the effects. Aron has already offered to let me borrow his delay, which will go a long way towards cool sounds.