Overview
Every year a city of 75,000 people is built in the middle of a dry lake bed which is in the middle of the Black Rock Desert which is in the middle of nowhere in Northern Nevada in the USA. Black Rock City exists ephemerally on a substrate of an ancient lake bed that is an unhealthy and caustic mix of alkaline salts and fine minerals laid out perfectly flat for miles in all directions. The smallest movement of air raises the dust, a breeze necessitates eye protection, a wind creates a whiteout so complete you can experience vertigo. The dust coats everything & everyone.
It is an environment naturally devoid of the influences of contour, contrast, color, liquid water, animal or plant life. In this setting humans arrive for a month of building and 10 days of existing. Then in effigy it is all burned to the ground. With no other natural influences the emergent culture is unique and decidedly humanistic. Life can become so amplified that the world outside is referred to as analog. Any day at This Thing in The Desert is a practice between survival and self-actualization and like no other day lived. And it comes with two constants: Dust & Art.
Objective
Why even? Dust, Logistics, Thirst, Weather in Extremes, Even More Dust…. Always Dust!
Five Things Audience Members Will Learn
- Drink Water
- Safety Third
- MOOP
- The Destructive Capability of Expansion Contraction Cycles
- Participation vs Interaction
Target Audience
Seekers, Artists, Dust Curious & Dust Cynics
