EGO vs. NATURE

Since Burning Man is rushing right at us we thought you might like to see a couple of photos Of EGO (in production), one of the 2012 Honorarium Installations for the Playa this year.

A few weeks  ago the amazing photojournalist, John Curley, wrote a post about the Desert Arts Preview.  In his post he wrote about Laura Kimpton who spoke about EGO, the Honorarium Installation she is building with Michael Garlington for [BM] this year.

This is what John said about her:

The funny and ironic thing about Laura Kimpton, though, the person who creates the giant words, is that she is dyslexic. Once the big words are set up for everybody to see,  “I just get to sit and spew about the art,” she says. No writing necessary. And just as it’s pretty funny that a dyslexic makes art out of words, the same irony is at work with EGO. “If there’s one theme,” Kimpton says, “it’s that we are not the main character on the planet. We are not No. 1.”

Each and every inch of the letters that will make up the enormous EGO will be covered with religious iconography, animals, and trophies. And after the EGO burns (and doesn’t that sound nice?), the crew expects that there will be souvenirs to take home, because not everything will be destroyed by the flames. So maybe you’ll get to take home a trophy from Burning Man this year.

This is the fourth year Laura Kimpton has brought a Large word to Burning Man.  EGO is 20 feet tall and 60 feet long.  Laura even gave an example to illustrate her point that humans are not No. 1.
She said that this piece “EGO” was built to represent that “man is nature”, and that humans sometimes forget that they are nature but think they are above nature and that it is theirs to control. But humans are nature, in her opinion, and no more superior than any animal on earth, because we are all one. Just as our teeth are not separate from our bodies they are just different from our eyes, but not superior, it is all one body.   We love to know what the artist was saying when we then get to see it at Burning Man.

Remarkably, Jess Hobbs utilized the same components in her presentation about Zoa, another of the 2012 Honorarium Installations, and the very same graphic, EGO vs. NATURE, reminding us that Playa synchronicity is real in the default world, too. The vast expanse of the Playa compels artists to tap into the zeitgeist in a way that reminds us how great ideas are often comprised of similar components. Beyond just artistic coincidence, it is likely artistic intuition.