A desert city in Silicon Valley

A city named Black Rock City appears and disappears as a mirage in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the last week of August. The temporary community with 70,000 in population made its appearance during the period from Aug. 25 to Sept. 5. To live in the city, you have to pay 400 U.S. dollars for admission and have to take care of your own daily necessities such as food and water. If you need anything, you have to exchange for something of equal value instead of money.

The reason that people are gathering to this desert city and enduring all the troubles is because of the Burning Man Festival. People can enjoy and self-express music, art, and dance whatever they like and learn and share their experiences and ideas in various themes in this convergence event. One thing very noticeable with the festival is that all artworks and installations are completely decomposed and discarded. The event takes its name from its culmination, the symbolic ritual burning of a large wooden man that occurs on the last day of the event.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs of Silicon Valley giants enjoy visits to Black Rock City. Although they are blamed for the luxurious camping, it is true that they also contributed to deliver the spirit of burning man, such as openness, sharing, and collaboration to the Silicon Valley culture. Google Doodle, the playful adaptation of the Google logo, was first appeared to announce the founders’ attendance at Burning Man, and the logo is now displayed in every special occasion. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is an avid fan of Burning Man. Tesla CEO Elon Musk got the idea of Solar City, a renewable energy service provider, from this event.

This annual festival was first started in 1986 Larry Harvey and a group of his artist friends, who burnt a wooden statue at a beach party in San Francisco. The venue of the festival aiming to create a voluntary and self-sustainable community was changed into the desert due to conflicts with the police. Harvey, the Chief Philosophic Officer of Burning Man Project, selected DaVinci’s Workshop as the theme of this year. Burning Man is a festival where dreamers and doers share their thoughts and experiences and explore cultural possibilities in harmony in the middle of a barren desert. Let’s hope that Korean bureaucratic organizations, who are establishing centers across the nation and focusing on nurturing “Creative Economy” only with an absolute way of thinking, to turn their attention to creative thinking of Burning Man.