Burning Flipside

Last updated
Flipside
VenueApache Pastures
Location(s) Rockdale, Texas, United States
InauguratedMay 1998
Most recent25–29 May 2023
Participants2,982 (actual in 2014)
Website www.burningflipside.com

Burning Flipside (or Flipside) is an annual effigy burn, display of creative arts, and self-expression of performances staged in Central Texas near Austin. Modeled on and associated with Burning Man, Flipside was the first regional Burning Man event.

Contents

Lasting five days during the Memorial Day weekend, it is significantly smaller than Burning Man, with 3131 tickets sold in 2022, compared to about 80,000 participants for Burning Man. Participants build a temporary city called Pyropolis; all of the structures in this city are dismantled and removed at the end of the event. The main structure, the "effigy", is burned the last night, as are many other pieces of art around Flipside.

Organisation

Flipside was initially organized under the auspices of a limited liability company called Austin Artistic Deconstruction. This entity was wound down and succeeded in 2001 by another LLC, Austin Artistic Reconstruction. This was in turn succeeded by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Catalyst Collective, in 2023.

The legal entity prohibits all commercial use of photographs, video, film or any other medium taken at Burning Flipside without written permission. [1] Therefore, media from Flipside is inherently non-free content. This prohibition on commercial use of imagery appeared as early as 1999. [2]

Principles

While Flipside, like all regional burns, adheres to the same principles as Burning Man in spirit, Flipside predates the formulation of Burning Man's 10 Principles and never formally adopted them. Instead, Flipside formulated three principles [3] that are more abstract and cover most of the same ground as Burning Man's ten:

Despite this difference, Burning Flipside is regarded as a "ten principles event."

Other similarities

No Vending. Flipside is a non-commercial event; sales of any commodity (the one exception being ice) for cash is not allowed and may cause eviction from the event. [4] Instead, a gift economy is used. Giving one gift in exchange for another is considered good form, but any kind of quid pro quo is a violation of the gift-economy rules

Leave No Trace. An extension of the self-reliance principle applied to outdoor living, requiring all participants to respect their environment and clean up everything they bring in. Participants try to leave the site cleaner than they found it rather than in an identical condition.

Art Installations—Flipside community members bring art to the event for display, including large free-standing works, fire art, and interactive pieces.

Theme camps—Groups of participants who build a structure or area for public entertainment with an underlying theme. (Example: Casineaux Camp - A camp with a Casino Theme with real gambling style games, but using donated prizes and fake coins.)

Performances—Flipside has a number of performance spaces that are used by musicians, theatre groups, DJs, fire performers, pageants, and interactive performances.

Differences from Burning Man

Similar to Burning Man's Black Rock Rangers, the Pyropolis Rangers mediate disputes and maintain security at the event; they wear a similar khaki uniform, and attempt to be non-intrusive to other participants. Unlike Burning Man, however, the event is not regularly patrolled by law enforcement, although they arrive quickly in the event of an emergency. [5]

Flipside has some other differences from Burning Man. Flipside's location is in a private camp area in the wooded, grassy Texas Hill Country, unlike the extremely flat, very dusty dried lake bed in Black Rock Desert where Burning Man is held. The Texas Hill Country features creeks, swimming holes, and tree-covered groves that make camping a more comfortable experience than the harsh high Nevada desert. Flipside is slightly more strict about the vending rule: the only thing sold is ice. The smaller size of the event creates a sense that one could meet everyone, as part of a temporary community that encompasses all the event participants. Almost every participant of Flipside, including the event's organizers, pay to get in regardless of how much time they put in volunteering. [6] The only exceptions Austin Artistic Reconstruction makes are four free tickets: two to the designer of the sticker, and two to the designer of the ticket.

Additionally, unlike Burning Man where the central effigy of a glowing neon man stays essentially unaltered from year to year (with alteration to its base and other design elements), the Flipside effigy changes radically with each event. For example, participants built and burned a 6-armed, cowboy hat-wearing Hanuman effigy in 2004, a rocket ship at the 2005 event, and a chalice at the 2006 event.

Event history

"Burning Man Texas" [7] was held in June 1998 by George Paap. It had 30 attendees, and featured the burning of a straw man built on site. Burning Flipside (named by Melody Byrd in Prost's backyard) began in 1999.

From 1998 through 2005, the event was held at Recreation Plantation ( 30°07′08″N98°10′50″W / 30.118830°N 98.180544°W / 30.118830; -98.180544 ), a private campground in neighboring Dripping Springs, Texas. Having outgrown that space, the event moved to a larger property in 2006, Flat Creek Crossing ( 30°17′00″N98°12′20″W / 30.283342°N 98.205479°W / 30.283342; -98.205479 ). While this location allowed for potential future growth, the land is also more primitive, due to the presence of large cliffs, scorpions, mountain lions, and other hazards, some believe that the land is more dangerous than even the Black Rock Desert. [8] In 2010, the event moved to Apache Pastures near San Gabriel, Texas and Rockdale, Texas. The endemic pecan trees offered shade and participant created trails provided access to the San Gabriel River, a larger body of water than was present at Flat Creek Crossing.

YearLocationThemeEffigyParticipantsNotes
1999Recreation PlantationCountdown to ArmageddonHA>250
2000Recreation PlantationPyropolisThe City300
2001Recreation PlantationHome on the StrangeThe Stranger>500 [9]

[10]

2002Recreation PlantationDown the Rabbit HoleThe Joker (House of Cards)750effigy dismantled and burned in Charlie Smith's art piece, Synapse Naust
2003Recreation PlantationDreams of Chromatic DistractionThe Sandman950
2004Recreation PlantationGlitter Monkey RodeoHanuman1,200 (max. tickets)The first year the event sold all available tickets pre-event.
2005Recreation PlantationInnergalactic CircusRocket1,500 (max. tickets)
2006Flat CreekFall from GraceChalice1,800 (max. tickets)First year at Flat Creek
2007Flat CreekSymphony of ConstructionThe Conductor2,007 (max. tickets)
2008Flat CreekDr Tiki's Combustible Medicine ShowThe Hula Girl2,345 (max. tickets)
2009Flat CreekFreakalicious SafariThe Freak2,468 (max. tickets)Effigy did not burn at Flat Creek. Dismantled and relocated to North Texas for the burn at Myschievia.
2010Apache PasturesPost Apocalyptic PromThe Texas Tango2,469 (max. tickets)First year at Apache Pastures (adjacent to Apache Pass River Theatre)
2011Apache PasturesBad IdeaBurning Bridges2,470 (max. tickets)
2012Apache PasturesFreaky Deeky Time MachineTime Machine2,483 (max. tickets)First year a sell-out of tickets spun off an event named Burning Otherside at Recreation Plantation
2013Apache PasturesThe Bandersnatch BoobytrapThe Beast '0132,557 (actual tickets past gate)First year to receive permit for population over 2500 (limit imposed by Texas' Mass Gathering Act)
2014Apache PasturesBy Lurko's BeardThe Lair of the Beard2,982 (actual tickets past gate)
2015Apache PasturesThe Wizards Of OddMagical Thinking2,852 (actual tickets past gate)Colloquially referred to as "Floodside"
2016Apache PasturesNoWe Wee Whee2,547 (actual tickets past gate)The number of tickets sold was reduced to reduce strain on the event volunteers following a very difficult year in 2015.
2017Apache PasturesUnicorns vs Rainbows: The ReckoningPlaywood Palace2,870 (actual tickets past gate)
2018Apache PasturesReturn of the Shadows: 20 Years of Light and DarkPINE Cononagon2627 (actual tickets past gate)
2019Apache PasturesSisyphean CelebrationWe'll Meet Again2649 (actual tickets past gate)
2020Apache PasturesThe Sacred and The PropaneN/AN/ACancelled due to COVID-19 & deferred to next year.
2021Apache PasturesN/AN/AN/ACancelled due to COVID-19 & deferred to next year.
2022Apache PasturesThe Sacred and The PropaneStairway to Heaven2100 (approximate tickets past gate)
2023Apache PassturesDemolition Disco Derby

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brewster County, Texas</span> County in Texas, United States

Brewster County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in West Texas and its county seat is Alpine. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region, and borders Mexico. Brewster County is the largest county by area in the state - at 6,192 square miles (16,040 km2) it is over three times the size of the state of Delaware, and more than 500 square miles (1,300 km2) bigger than Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zozobra</span> Giant marionette effigy burned annually in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Zozobra is a giant marionette effigy constructed of wood, wire and cotton cloth that is built and burned on the Friday of Labor Day weekend prior to the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. It stands 50 ft. 6 in. high.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burning Man</span> Annual experimental festival based in Nevada, United States

Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the western United States. The event's name comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, that occurs on the penultimate night, the Saturday evening before Labor Day. Since 1991, the event has been at Black Rock City in northwestern Nevada, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles (160 km) north-northeast of Reno. According to Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey in 2004, the event is guided by ten stated principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effigy</span> Representation of a person through art

An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain traditions around New Year, Carnival and Easter. In European cultures, effigies were in the past also used for punishment in formal justice, when the perpetrator could not be apprehended, and in popular justice practices of social shaming and exclusion. Additionally, "effigy" is used for certain traditional forms of sculpture, namely tomb effigies, funeral effigies and coin effigies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Harvey</span> American artist, co-founder of Burning Man (1948–2018)

Larry Harvey was an American artist, philanthropist and activist. He was the main co-founder of the Burning Man event, along with his friend Jerry James.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nowhere (event)</span>

Nowhere is a Burning Man regional event in Spain, the biggest such regional event in Europe. It began in 2004 and is held annually in July in the Monegros Desert, located in Aragon in north-eastern Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burning of Judas</span> Easter-time Christian ritual

The burning of Judas is an Easter-time ritual that originated in European Christian communities where an effigy of Judas Iscariot is burned. Other related mistreatment of Judas effigies include hanging, flogging, and exploding with fireworks. A similar ritual in Jewish tradition would be the hanging and burning an effigy of Haman and his ten sons during Purim, although this is not a widespread contemporary practice.

Playa del Fuego, also known as "PDF" by its participants, is a regional event inspired by the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada. The event is held in the Mid-Atlantic region twice a year, with the spring event (PDF) being held over Memorial Day and the fall event (Constellation) being held over Columbus Day weekend. Most of the planners and participants come from the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and surrounding states including Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; though more than a few come from as far away as New England.

Transformus is a regional Burning Man art festival hosted on Marvin's Mountaintop in Masontown, West Virginia. The community forms a temporary city called Mysteria during the third weekend in July which includes art installations, neighborhoods, lively nightlife and camps which offer services to the community. Since 2006 Transformus has distributed over $207,747 in art grants to the community. It remains one of the most art-centric Burner events in the U.S. Transformus celebrates Burning Man's 10 principles of radical inclusion, radical gifting, radical decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy. Transformus also focuses on consent as its 11th principle.

Apogaea is an annual collaborative outdoor arts and music festival held as a Colorado regional counterpart for the Burning Man event. Typically held in late spring in southern Colorado, Apogaea ("Apo"), establishes a temporary autonomous zone where radical self-expression, inclusiveness, and self-reliance are the hallmarks of its participants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camp Mabry</span> Military base in Austin, Texas

Camp Mabry is a military installation in Austin, Texas, housing the headquarters of the Texas Military Department, Texas Military Forces, and Texas Military Forces Museum. Established in 1892, Camp Mabry is the third-oldest active military installation in Texas, behind Fort Sam Houston and Fort Bliss. It was named for Brigadier General Woodford H. Mabry, the Adjutant General of Texas when the camp was founded. The camp was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firefly Arts Collective</span> Organization

Firefly Arts Collective is an American non-profit organization that facilitates the annual New England regional burner festival 'Firefly'. Firefly is a regional event inspired by the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada. Firefly is held in Vermont typically during July 4 weekend. Most of the organizers and participants come from the Boston metropolitan area and surrounding states including Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Law (artist)</span> American artist and cultural figure; co-founder of Burning Man

John Law is an American artist, culture-jammer, and neon sign technician. He was a primary member of the Cacophony Society and a member of the Suicide Club. He is also a co-founder of Burning Man which evolved out of the spirit of the Cacophony Society when a precursor solstice party was banned from San Francisco's Baker Beach and merged with another Cacophony event on the Black Rock desert in Nevada. Originally from Michigan, Law has lived in San Francisco, California since 1976, and has maintained the signage and clock face of the Tribune Tower in Oakland, where he also has an office, since 1996.

Kiwiburn is a regional Burning Man event based in Hunterville, Manawatū-Whanganui, New Zealand celebrating principles such as inclusion, radical self-expression, gifting, participative art and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AfrikaBurn</span> Burning Man regional event in South Africa

AfrikaBurn is an official Burning Man regional event, held at Quaggafontein in the Tankwa Karoo, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is centered on the building of a temporary creative community in a semi-desert environment, involving ephemeral artworks, some of which are burnt towards the end of the event. Many attendees wear elaborate costumes and some create decorated "mutant vehicles". These mobile art cars are officially called Desert Mutant Vehicles.

Alchemy is a burn event operated according to the 10 Principles of Burning Man held annually in the early fall. Alchemy was first held in 2007 and grew quickly to become the largest regional burn in the United States and second largest in the world in 2012. In 2013, the event cap was lowered by approximately 1,000. However the 2014 cap was set at 3,200 participants as was the 2015 cap.

<i>Spark: A Burning Man Story</i> 2013 American film

Spark: A Burning Man Story is a 2013 independent documentary film with its world premiere at the South by Southwest film festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. That is about some 60,000 or so people that gather from around the world for a week at the annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert of Nevada to collaborate building a temporary city that operates on a "gifting" economy where nothing is bought or sold. Participants bring in everything; food, water, and shelter. The week features large-scale art installations and partying, at the conclusion of the week a celebration in the ritual burning of a giant effigy, and after one week, take it all away.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blazing Swan</span>

Blazing Swan is an annual regional Burning Man event held near Jilakin Lake in the Shire of Kulin, Western Australia. It is an experiment in temporary community and artistic expression, and is guided by eleven main principles, including radical inclusion, gifting and radical self-reliance. The event occurs around Easter each year, usually over a period of seven days. The event location is on bushland adjacent to Jilakin Lake, and is referred to as Jilakin Rock City. A wooden effigy is built and burned at the culmination of the event.

Desert Siteworks was an event held on the Black Rock Desert for three years (1992-1994). Participants built art and participated in self-directed performances.

References

  1. ↑ Burning Flipside Survival Guide, 2008. <http://www.burningflipside.com/survivalguide2008.pdf>retrieved[ permanent dead link ] on 2010-01-22.
  2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010908175028/http://www.burnaustin.org/history/archive/flipside99/survivalGuide.html>
  3. ↑ "About Catalyst Collective". Burning Flipside. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  4. ↑ http://www.burningflipside.com/about#What>
  5. ↑ http://www.burningflipside.com/wiki/Pyropolis_Rangers>
  6. ↑ "PowerPoint Presentation - AAR 2009-2010 Budget". Archived from the original on 2010-03-04. Retrieved 2010-06-12.>
  7. ↑ http://www.burningman.com/preparation/newsletters/2002-summer/index.html>
  8. ↑ Archived March 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Nissenbaum, Dion. Knight Ridder News Service. "'Burning Man' festival fires up global following." The Denver Post (Colorado, USA). 2000-08-10. p. A35. Retrieved from Newsbank's "America's Newspapers" through the Dallas Public Library Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine on 2010-01-22.
  10. ↑ Stein, Joel. "The Man Behind Burning Man" Time. 2000-08-10. Retrieved from <> on 2010-01-22. Archived by WebCite at

30°41′43″N97°08′43″W / 30.695257°N 97.145147°W / 30.695257; -97.145147

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.