History

Burning Man!!

Hi all! This is the founder. Here’s a little story about me and my camp. I've been to 15 burns and I've been the central organizer of a camp called Wrongtown since its beginning in 2010. I handled most of the communications, finances, and projects, and was largely responsible for its growth from 2014-2018, when camp's population grew from 25 to 135.  I have a work history in finance, film production, and martial arts instruction. I love fire, flow arts, bass music, and, most of all, building community.

I was so proud of our camp in 2018, when we hosted members of five different conclaves and had a full DJ lineup with several big fire jams during the week, as well having Wheelchair Jousting and a public watering hole for caffeine and electrolytes. However, there was a conflict between myself and the camp's primary founder, builder, and official leader as our camp grew further and further away from his original vision of having a small family of burners from abroad. I wholeheartedly support international burners, but my focus all along has also been to grow from the size of a family into more of a community.

To put it bluntly, I don't believe that Burning Man is all about having a camp mom or dad providing for and taking care of a bunch of overly dependent and sometimes dysfunctional Sparkle Pony children who simply want a place to be comfortable (while also running renegade sound). I believe in tempering Communal Effort with Radical Self-Reliance - and a sense of camp ownership - so that people are healthy, empowered and feel free to do what they love in a way that provides value to the community. Also, to me, self-actualization and Radical Self-Expression - especially in the forms of art and music - are essential to what it means to be a burner. Contributing to the city, clearly and significantly, and in a capacity sanctioned by the BMorg, is also very important to me.

Our conflict came to a head in 2018, when there was just too much work for three organizers to handle without completely exhausting ourselves - and there wasn't adequate delegating to fill the gap. The resentment that the founder had towards me, the acting if not official leader that year, grew to a point where we could no longer cooperate. Wrongtown will come back to the playa, and it will be downsizing in the process. This is a solution for camp Wrongtown that all three camp leads agreed on. It's time for me to move on and found a new camp.

This will be Camp Kinetic's first burn. I'm excited to take everything I've learned over the years and have a fresh start. My vision for this camp is to keep the Ten Principles alive, to build some aesthetically pleasing structures, and to support a community of people who are passionate about fire, movement arts, and bass music! This is what I've done locally, with L.A. Burn Club @laburnclub - a story that's similar to the story of Wrongtown, except with different timelines/scopes and little to no conflict due to everyone sharing all of the same goals.

The goal here is not necessarily to grow as large as Wrongtown was in 2018 - it certainly won't be half that big this year - but instead, to stay focused and cohesive.

There are already several people on board who I admire and respect. Some of them are my campmates from 2018 or earlier. I'm so grateful that there are people who share the same vision as I do. Together we look forward to creating what will be, in some ways, a metamorphosis from Wrongtown, and in other ways, a completely new experience at Black Rock City.

See you on the playa!

Andy

Camp Kinetic

Instagram @campkinetic