For many of us over the last 30 years, Burning Man has been somewhat of a legend. The cultural event has expanded exponentially since it was founded in 1986. It now stretches out into a multi-day adventure that draws in upward of 60,000 participants. While society has focused its attention on mainstream events like Coachella, Burning Man remained mostly mythic until the sheer size of the event began to demand a different type of infrastructure and, in turn, a lot more visibility. In their 2013 documentary, Spark: A Burning Man Story, Steve Brown and Jessie Deeter peel back the layers of Burning Man, turning his lens on the founders, the machine behind the event, and the community that keeps it alive.
To understand what Burning Man has become, Brown and Deeter take a careful look back at its history. We hear from the founding members, Crimson Rose, Harley K. Dubois, the late Larry Harvey, Marian Goodell, Michael Mikel, Will Roger, and John Law, who left Burning Man as it began to expand and the need for more structure became apparent. For the founders who joined the group at various points, Burning Man is much more than an event. Throughout the film, we learn why they find themselves in the 100 plus degree heat in Nevada's Black Rock desert, transforming it into Black Rock City each year.
Spark is set in the months leading up to the 2012 event. At the time, Burning Man was curated by Black Rock City, LLC, a for-profit business put into place at the turn of the 21st century to circumvent the size and liabilities that come with producing such an event. Built on 10 principles, including gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, and civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy, Burning Man had become more cumbersome then any of the owners or the attendees could have dreamed of.
