help NEXUS shine on the playa in 2011

…THE NEXUS MASQUERADE :: A BURNING MAN FUNDRAISER

4 areas of music, visuals, lasers, massage, decor and interactive art.

your musical guides:

DAVID STARFIRE

MOCHIPET

WORTHY

LITTLE JOHN

MR PROJECTILE

LOTUS DROPS

GALEN

ANTHON MANSFIELD

CHRIS SMITH

DIGITAL HONEY

STRIDAH

THE SCRITCH

PAULEY UNSATURATED

DABIS

SPEKTRUM

DAX

ALABASTER KANE

LEAFY GREEN

D GRAPH

ERIN BANWELL

ANDROO THE PIRATE

FIRE LIEBER

CUMULUS

VINJA

DIGITAL RUST

+ much more TBA

visuals by D Graph, Sponge Monkey & Friends

HAUTE TAUTIES BURLESQUE with Stella Noir, Roxy Reve & Dixie Delish

“Space Palette” interactive installation by Tim Thompson

Masks by Tom Banwell will be available for purchase at the event. Prices range from $20 to $42. See more of Tom’s work at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TomBanwell?ref=pr_shop_more

NEXUS t-shirts and hoodies also available

Limited $10 pre-sales available : http://nexusmasquerade.eventbrite.com/

$20 at the door

FREE ADMISSION for Nexus Camp Members who have paid their 2011 camp dues in full.

If you have pre-registered online you can pay your camp dues to the cashier IN CASH the night of the event.

1015 Folsom
San Francisco, CA

21+ w/ ID

come to our masquerade before unveiling your true self on the playa

The Playa Restoration crew is back in the world… and after what surely is one of the most thankless jobs at Burning Man the results are in! While we were not perfect we KICKED SERIOUS MOOP ASS!!!! The theme camp (party area) received a yellow and the camping area received a GREEN!!!! Word on the Black Rock was that Nexus “put in the extra effort to clean up the biggest party on the Playa, and it really showed”! Nurse, of Playa Restoration (and color in-er of the official 2010 Moop Map) could not say enough good things about our efforts. Said he…. “The whole crew really appreciated what you guys did out there. Not only did you have huge parties every night, you really worked hard to clean up. It was a yellow but it was a much better effort than that color reflects. Thank you and pass that on to who needs to know!” So to all you crazy sexy Nexicans… YOU ROCK! Big ups to the whole late clean up crew staying until BLM threatened to give us all citations. One more day and we would have had green all the way! But like the saying goes .. “Burning Man was better next year!” So we can all give ourselves a pat on the back Nexicans for blownin it HUGE and cleanin it up after. (Except for the person who left a weeks worth of dirty socks in a dust drift… you should stay home. please.)

Nurse of the Playa Restoration Team and “his” 2010 Burning Man MOOP Map

Much thanks to everyone who lent a hand, came to a fundraiser event,made a sequence, bought a hoodie, and helped spread the word! The Pyrosphere was truly a community accomplishment!

Thanks for making it happen,

Erin B

The PyroSphere Crew

Erin Banwell- creator, director, conceptual design, R&D, flame effects, fundraising coordinator

Chris Nowak- Structural Manager, design, heavy equipment

Steve Cronberg- circuit design, head programmer, R&D

Nathan Crane- flame effects, plumbing, electrical, head technician

Chris Pomodoro- architectural design, structural engineering

Robert Cordtz- creator of The Pyro Bowl

Zeke Koch- Sequencer programming

Corey Patterson- sequencer technician

Aaron Davis- welding

Hillary- welding

Mark Pauley-programming

Josh Silverstein- logistical support

Kristina Moreno

Vaughn Parsons

Christian Ardita

David Ampersand

Hali Stone

Ashley Pauley

Taylor Williams

Patty T Nowak

Julie Luster

Erin Pauley

Selina Koch

Randy Sherwood

Damiean Hollinga

David Plate

Haley Koch

Chris Medak

Donny Thomas II

Connell Burke

Dustin Raphael

Crystal

Red Floyd

Tom

]]> http://nexusorg.org/2010/burning-man/the-pyrosphere-video-and-photos/feed/ 1721 http://nexusorg.org/2010/blog/the-plan/ http://nexusorg.org/2010/blog/the-plan/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:23:58 +0000 ChrisP http://nexusorg.org/2010/blog/the-plan/ Hello Nexicans,

As most of you already know, we are going bigger than ever with amazing effort from a vast and creatively charged crew. To help keep that energy focused the steering committee has authorized the creation of The Plan. In efforts to keep us all on the same page and to increase the chances of an alien landing, here are several JPGs illustrating the layout for this year’s epic burn.

When setting up your camp, please maintain the paths that will connect everyone to our Nexus Center Camp with our very own Cafe Nexus provided by David and Hali. These paths will be lit by Mark’s awesome color changing LED lights. All this will help facilitate the alien abductions giving them easy access to most sites. Of course if you prefer not to be abducted, then camp as far away from a path as possible. Only then will you ensure being a spectator to someone else’s abduction and not the abductee.

If you have a large RV/Trailer/Box Truck… please set up in the area’s marked for Large Vehicle camping. This will help create a wind buffer and allow smaller camping in the middle. It will also give a wind break to the spaceship during those last crucial 20 feet of landing. The idea is to have a more muppet friendly environment around center camp and the inner ring path.

When you arrive, look for the Welcome Wagon for help in finding the most effective camp site for your needs.

On another note, as much as we love and welcome anyone willing to help put things together, you can become many times more effective if you also bring some basic tools, such as: hammers, wrenches, socket sets, sewing machines, cordless drills, scissors, saws, a million philips head screwdriver drill bits, duct tape, zip ties, shade umbrellas, margarita mix, soldering kit, electrical tape, blow torch, alien landing lights, bike repair tools, fork lift, anything you think might be useful and is not too much of a pain in the ass to bring.

One last item: The bar will celebrate it’s second burn, however it is a bit shy on bar accessories. If you’ve got some, feel free to bring any items you think our friendly nexborhood bartenders would find useful, such as mixers, cutting boards, limes, shot glasses, chalk board/dry erase board for drink specials, hacked bar poker game console etc….

Can’t wait to see everyone on the playa,

-Crisp

This year’s camp seems surreal! You all know about the ridiculous project the Nexus pyro team is undergoing but you may not know the project the Tesla Coil crew is putting together, so let me explain…

Nexus has long been an epicenter for art, creativity, mind expansion, friendship, and a place where ideas seem to take on a life of their own.

I think of Nexus as a collective of energy that transcends dimensional barriers that reach the very soul of all those who enter. It is not only a place of epic visual, auditory and performance art, but a place that creates an awakening deep inside that cannot be explained in words. This is why we have gone towards a project that focuses on a representation of the energy created during our transformation from the everyday illusion we live to the all things possible Playa; called The Galaxatron.

The Galaxatron is the power plant of Nexus. It is a 30 foot glowing dome that draws its energy from the Playa through large pyramid conduits that surround the dome (top secret alien technology) that focus this energy into mega conductors that each plug into the dome. These mega conductors are each programmed to show energy flow through thousands of programmed LED’s; and in the heart of this alien machine lays the Tesla Coil.

Many of you may have seen the coil at Burning Man in ’05, Decompression, or hopefully somewhere else when it worked without a hitch. It has been brought to the Playa in the recent years but has had many technical difficulties associated with grounding issues and magnetic shifts that made it extremely temperamental in the harsh desert environment. After much research, expert consultation as well as trial and error we have ironed out how to achieve ignition in an environment that eats electronics for breakfast (thanks again to the steering committee for putting together an awesome galactic tech support line).

Description:

We are building an art piece to be at the corner spot at Burning Man 2010. The project is called “The Galaxatron”. It is a 30ft geodesic dome that we are having powder coated to reflect high power led lighting.

We will have five 12 ft pipes running to pyramids that stand 8ft tall and are each encoded with a different element (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Air and Spirit) with both old school druid symbols along with Mandarin Chinese symbols. Each 4 inch pipe will contain pre-programed led lighting to emulate energy being transferred to the dome through these pyramid energy sources.

There will be a letter on the top of each pyramid all five spelling N-E-X-U-S. Each of these pyramids will be painted and textured to simulate pyramid sandstone to mach the Playa and will be lit with high power led wash panels. Finally we will have the giant Tesla Coil in the middle that will arc and hit the dome and Koleman juggling fire battling 1,500,000 volts!

We have also have acquired 2 full color lasers that will blast the camp with a shower of light. These things are very cool.

Color Laser 1

Color Laser 2

show Bassnectar rocking it at the Nexus dome. You can see the all 42 of these awesome images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157623208355287/

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2008 Nexus Fire installation by Erin Banwell, Josh Silverstein, Al Traves.

The Fire cauldron was the center piece of the 2008 Nexus fire installation:

A 7 ft diameter, half sphere pool of water with   fire bubbling up out of the murky depths.

It became a gathering spot.

Heat seekers came….

Conversationalists came……..

Some people showed up with a bag of hot dogs and a long stick and proceeded to make dinner…

One guy decided to go for a little swim………. while the fire was lit…………………..go figure.

The Fire Cauldron made an appearance at the South Lake Tahoe decom party, where it provided warmth, light, and good place to conversate for about 250.

.

The 2009 Nexus Fire Art installation at Burning Man consisted of 5 seperate flame effects. Four of these were equipped with 3/4 inch solenoid valves and 125 gallon accumulator tanks, and were capable of producing 15 to 20 ft bursts of flame. The fifth flame effect, “Big Boy” (video below), was equipped with a 2 inch solenoid valve and 125 gallon accumulator tank, and was capable of producing 25 to 40 ft bursts of flame! All five flame effects were controlled by a keyfob remote control. With full batteries in the remote, we had a range of about 400 ft!

We developed a circuit that could be used to make a flame effect go to music , but unfortunately the audio cable we ran from the DJ booth was bad, and by the time we realized the problem, all cables were already buried in hundreds of feet of ditches, so we were not able to use this sweet effect on the playa. Here’s a video of one of the test runs:

Created, designed and constructed by:

Erin Banwell

Nathan Crane

Josh Silverstien