Monday, May 28, 2007

Fire Safety & Camp Combustibles Location


These diagrams are required to exhibit flame effects at Burning Man. Burning Man makes every effort to ensure the safety of the participants and the safety of the art.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

TRUTHBURN Art Project at Burning Man 2007



This is an art project plan for implementation at Burning Man 2007


Plan For The Burning of “TRUTH” at Burning Man

1) Philosophy Behind the Project

2) Description of the Project

3) Endorsements

4) Fundraising

5) Joining the Team

6) Timeline

7) Video and Art Show Strategy

8) Thank Yous and Prayers






1) Philosophy Behind the Project

Whether you choose to believe it or not, events around the attacks of September 11, 2001 are clouded in darkness. Voices that have asked for a deeper and more thorough look into the causes and details of this event have raised many unanswered questions and largely been ignored by the press and dominant thought in the public mind. Yet the questions keep coming through the crevices that are afforded to them at the moment.

Suppose there is some truth to the thought that Government knowingly permitted the attacks to happen and even embellished them in order to achieve what it thought was the highest good of those they represent? If true, then there would be momentous consequences for the acts and directions this country has taken since then. If true, the only way to reset the course, would be to manifest a complete and honest account of what happened. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation policy is a working model for how this can work.

The “Truth Burn” Project is an attempt to refocus the National gaze on a specific side of this event- the actual theoretical mode scientists and engineers have proposed for what really brought down the world trade towers and building 7. This would be the use of explosives and the steel burning incendiary called “thermate”. Traces of this substance were found at ground zero. (reference current article by physicist Steven Jones) We don’t plan on using explosives but we do plan on using thermate. By using a controlled demolition technique to destroy this artwork, we hope to provoke a wider examination about what really happened that day in September. We also want to demonstrate the speed and destructiveness of the incendiary, in a test use of the method to bolster the controlled demolition theory of a growing body of scientists, engineers and other professionals.

2) Description of the Project (Last modified on July 26, 2007)

The project involves a complex series of procedures designed to deliver a large steel frame structural art piece to the Black Rock desert in Nevada as part of the 2007 Burning Man Art Festival, and then destroy part of it in a flame-firework spectacle. After

the Burning Man event, the remaining pieces can then be removed and viewed in art shows, universities or wherever they are welcome.

The piece itself stands about 16’ tall and 22’ long. Two main support columns made of 10" by 10" x 1/8" thick tubular steel hold the structure up. A cross brace at the top made of 10" u-channel steel spans the gap between these support columns by 22 feet. The two main support columns rest on 2, 10’ long tubular steel A frame ‘sleds’ also made from tubular steel and run perpendicularly to the support structure to ensure its stability. Suspended from the top spanning steel beam are the words, TRUTH. This word is constructed out of a lighter steel and welded to the spanner beam. Illuminated smoke will emanate from the top of this word, thermite incendiaries bringing it down near the end of the festival .

Thermite will cut through the top header at each end and be set off by remote control.

Pre-recorded music only will accompany this burn, also, some live music.The selections are from Michael Franti,

“ Bomb the World ” , Cat Stevens, “Where Do The Children Play?”, and Krishna Das, “Mountain Hare Krishna”. The ignition will proceed when Krishna Das reaches the “Amazing Grace” section of “Mountain Hare Krishna”

All the necessary precautions will be taken to protect the public from any type of harm resulting from this project.

3) Endorsements

Architect Richard Gage, AIA, Architects and Engineers For 9/11 Truth http://ae911truth.org
ae911truth.org
Dr. Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, 911blogger.com

Phil Arnot. Phil flew 21 combat missions over Germany in a B-17 as a co-pilot during WWII. He's a friend and an author of many books on climbing and hiking in the Sierras of California. He completely agrees with the premise of this project and supports it 100%


http://www.chickenjohn.com
- Chicken John, famous performance artist and Burning Man cultural icon
"Like it, why I LOVE TRUTH!!! Truth is one of my favorite things. That and thermite...."

4) Fundraising

An estimate for the structure’s construction as described here has been obtained from a number of steel fabricating companies. The amount is $7,000.00 -A rough estimate for transport, assembly & removal (the piece will come in three pieces) , demolition experts, peripherals, publicity materials, security, housing & insurance is estimated to be an additional $13,000.00 We therefore seek a total of $20,000.00 for this project. As we have missed the filing deadline for the art grants for the 2007 Burning Man festival, we are seeking this amount from organizations and individuals who see the value in such a display. A temporary tax deductible escrow holder will be set up to collect funds.Please help us realize this worthy dream. The consequences of a successful art experience from this are hard to measure .We believe they will be significant and far reaching.

5) Joining the Team

We need a range of people to help in the following areas:

Fundraising, Sub Contractor contact person ( Truck drivers, iron workers (to assemble the art and de-assemble it) demolition contractor contact person. Sound assist, eye protection dispensing, security (our own) video crew. Press contact. Bookkeeper, endorsers.

If funds permit, there will be compensation for these positions.

Email John Parulis here: truthburn at brightpathvideo.com

6) Timeline.

May: secure funding, Burning Man permissions, schedule from fabricator, line up sub contactors. Secure storage for materials after event removal,

June: Establish press strategy, video dissemination strategy, solidify crew

July: Run tests on burn on small but representative materials. Secure insurance, safety measures. RV living situations for key crew members

August: Mid August set up delivery, testing

September: After event clean up art show considerations.

7) Video & Art Show Strategy

Make contacts, entertain inquiries and prioritize.

8) Thank Yous and Prayers

This is a collaborative effort. Many people will need to be thanked, even feted for their help. This is as important as the event itself.




This is the reasoning for and the prayer that guides this project:

The Reasoning for the Prayer

Prayer is an important way to start things off on a good track. In this case it is vital. Consider for a moment, the following:

911 Prayer Intention

"Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)

That saved a soul like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see. "

John Newton penned these words around the time he experienced an ‘awakening’ around the early 19th century.

He had been the captain of a slave ship. During a violent storm at sea, he experienced a shift in consciousness. Soon after, he renounced slave running for an altogether different way of life.

Outer transformations are really inner transformations. How does this happen? What makes a Daniel Elsberg decide to risk career and personal freedom to publish a disturbing classified account of America’s darker reasons for engaging in the Vietnam War?

What causes any whistle blower to take the sometime life threatening risk of revealing truths that would otherwise never see the light of day? It is, in short, the higher mind at work.

Positive prayer or focused intention is a way for the universal to operate on the level of a well placed, well crafted thought put to its highest use. The Transcendentalists spoke of the “over soul”, a kind of unifying principle. There is a commonality in experience. Making contact with the source of that commonality, is to share some of its attributes, namely, the shaping of higher thoughts. Higher thoughts vibrate at a different frequency that tends to lift up the atmosphere of general thought. Grace is the constant movement in all sentient beings towards a higher expression of itself. In times of great troubles, many minds converge with thoughts of peace and solution. These deeply felt longings are what’s at work especially now, in the time we live. We can re-create what we have created. The complexity of what we have created can be worked with and set to balance.

The Prayer

Being that we are all intimately connected by our common inheritance of shared life on one planet and that our common shared higher intelligence governs life in both seen and unseen ways, and being that this common ancestry has its roots in cosmic intelligence or mind, and being that we therefore incarnate with this shared higher intelligence, we share its creative power as well. We are imbued with this creativity and its commonality.

As an outlet, voice, individual manifestation and aspiration for this cosmic intelligence, I claim the highest thought of calling forth truth telling on an unprecedented scale in the minds and hearts in high levels of government and other individuals. I call forth the energizing of personal courage where it matters the most to catalyze this movement of truth telling on a grand scale. I know that truth telling is at the foundation of healthy individual as well as a healthy societal life. I know that what has gone astray can be righted by a personal and public, fearless embrace of the truth, with safety for the truth teller.. The deepest space in the heart of all people knows this to be true and wants it revealed without delay. The refined and subtle physics for this is already in place and happening at this moment.

For this I give my deepest and profoundest thanks.

I release this prayer this intention this shared spark of light into the creative mind running through us all and through all of life. Happily, I know the glory of its fulfillment is accomplished already in ways unimaginable and realizable.

And so it is.

What TRUTHBURN is trying to replicate...

Artist's Rendition of Scale Model





This is a concept drawing of TruthBurn using a model drawn to 1 inch to the foot scale. The overall height & length of the piece is 20 feet. A constant stream of propane flames from a trough beneath the letters will engulf them in flames at dusk & night. These flames will stop the day of the destruction of the art piece. As thermate burns the two steel main support columns, the letters will be engulfed by a pyrotechnic display.