Years Attended: 4

Burning man projects and affiliations:

BeatMower is the electronic music tag for Nat Keefe, also the singer/guitarist/founder of bluegrass band Hot Buttered Rum. In the past 25 years, Nat has composed and created music for symphony orchestra, choir, marimba, percussion ensemble, string trio, and countless songs and compositions for Hot Buttered Rum and various live music ensembles. The BeatMower project began with collaborations and recordings from Nat's travels to Rwanda, Zambia, and Ghana, which Nat mixed with American music to create tunes to fit a House music context. In the last 4 years, BeatMower has performed dancemusic at festivals, clubs, and backyards. In designing Field of Flowers interactive music, Nat will draw on all his experiences, and incorporate the values of John Cage, Steve Reich, LCD Soundsystem, Jon Hopkins, video game design, and Ghanaian gyile xylophone. Nat's been to Burning Man 4 times.

Years Attended: 1

Burning man projects and affiliations:

Jeff has a tinker’s soul and a PhD in Computer Science. He worked with Patrick on data analysis and machine learning for human rights back in 2005-2010. Since then, he has been a senior software engineer, and he's looking forward to bringing those skills to this project. He first attended Burning Man in 2004.

Years Attended: 6

Burning man projects and affiliations:

i have been attending burning man since i was 14 and doing art since i could hold a pencil. in my years at the burn i have assisted on several art projects / burn perimeters including the mazu temple in 2015 and the foley in 2019. Ive also helped wylbur with his LED art pieces in camp the past two years i’ve been with JOBI.

Years Attended: 6 1/2

Burning man projects and affiliations:

Dan Has been a graphic designer for 32+ years with a background in traditional printing. Recently he has been exploring sculpting in virtual space, 3d printing and resin casting. He has attended 6 1/2 burns since 2015. He has helped build and maintain The Blinky Mirror with Patrick Ball and Jobi in the past. Dan’s experience with 3d printing and resin casting is helping the project realize its vision.

Years Attended: 10

Burning man projects and affiliations:

Throughout my years at the burn, I’ve been involved in a variety of projects. As a TCO I’ve spoken at, and helped to organize, the annual conference. As part of the CAMP Support team I mentor other camps that are new and/or have challenges. With that, I also support Yeti in the logistics of Camp Support. With the Cultural Direction Setting team I worked on the GANNT chart for the various burn committees. For art, I’ve built on the temples twice off playa, and once on playa, as well as built on the lighthouses and the Folly. On playa I served as a docent for the Folly, and was part of a team that kept it from burning prematurely.

Years Attended: 13

Burning man projects and affiliations:

Wylbur has built several LED-based art pieces. The Blinky Mirror was 4’x6’ interactive 1500-LED mirror that enabled dancing participants to paint their movements onto a smoothly diffused screen as random shadow effects created a sense of digital grain (2015-2019). Wallpaper was a 7'x4' panel displaying 12 randomly-initialized, non-repeating patterns across a grid of 960 LEDs behind a diffusion sheet (shown on the 9 o'c plaza in 2019 and 2022). Both the Mirror and Wallpaper were controlled with Raspberry Pi's driving Fadecandy boards. He has built several teensy-based wearable LED pieces, including a coat with interactivity driven by a capacitive touch sensor, and an illuminated fox tail that wags with a bit of petting (i.e., a double-click). Of course he has added every manner of camp- and bike-blinky decoration to JOBI, using every scrap of LED strand and stray arduino that has been left behind.

Burning man projects and affiliations:

George may not be the only person who's worked with both DARPA and the Burning Man Department of Public works, but there's a good chance he is the only one who's also seen Black Rock City while travelling at terminal velocity. It's been almost 20 years since he last dropped in on the playa and in that time he's had various adventures in technology, critical infrastructure, and disaster response, and spent the pandemic building robots to amuse himself and his kids. For this project he'll be managing the server side - synchronizing the eyes in the sky with the flowers in the field and the boots on the ground.

Burning man projects and affiliations:

I turned and shaped cedar when I was younger and listened to the stories of generations past during the potlatch until the small hours of the morning. Bees didn’t have a central place amongst the brooding magical owl witches, wise and manipulative raven spirits, and monarchical sea monsters of legend. Bees are often relegated to the functional sidelines of traditional lore, though they are often depicted as being helpful workers and warriors for their clans, along with bringing a marked enhancement to human fecundity. At times, they are mentioned as the nasty, stinging spawn of the great timber giantess, which is no place for proper entomological representation, as you may well imagine.

How, then, does an individual create a more positive image of an invertebrate that has borne the weight of so many cultural inequities? How does one bring to light the burgeoning plight of this oft- besmirched insect to an audience wider than one has obvious right to? “Burning Man!” says an errant voice from the back of the room. That was Fred, of course, and he’s something of a lush. He does make a point, though.

I and my family were fortunate enough to cross paths with Ann-Marie Benz during the preparatory phase of our attempt to join Burning Man 2022. This wonderful CAMP advisor, a superlative source of Burning Man information surrounded by equally fantastical creatures such as herself, turned out to be a horticulturalist specializing in species of plants native to the great state of California. It is incredibly fortunate that the opportunity to support this fantastic art piece arose so soon after our induction into the Burning Man culture. This will be my family’s first grand push towards an on-playa art installation, and it could not be occurring during a more perfectly theme year as this.