Star of the Show
At midnight, the Big Dipper's stars will glide into perfect alignment with seven red rings hovering above playa.
At midnight, the Big Dipper's stars will glide into perfect alignment with seven red rings hovering above playa.
All night long, people speaking into microphones trigger visual responses in Midnight Star's field of hovering rings. Hoops ringed with smart LED lights react in real time to volume, pitch and rythym.
A field of ambient sound greets wanderers. Original scores integrate space recordings: solar plasma, quasars, Saturn's rings, Leonids meteors, astronaut chatter... listen
Three microphones gather voices, inviting words, songs and utterances. Folks jam and groove with one another. Sensors gauge their layered vocals, as lights and soundscape respond.
Added especially for Black Rock musicians, the middle mic contains a secret weapon: a repeat pedal to lay down multiple looping tracks, for layers of thick juicy sound.
Hundreds of calculations are required long before arriving on playa, to precisely position Midnight Star's hoops to receive the Big Dipper's transitory stars, which roam through the sky.
A field of 30" illuminated rings spatially mimic the Big Dipper's stars, in light-years to earth and night-sky elevation. At midnight, the stars and rings perfectly align as folks gather for meditative ritual.
Monday - Thursday
Gathering begins 11:30 pm @ Midnight Star
Take a guided meditative tour of the night sky. Combining spirituality, music and physics, we'll journey from our galaxy to deep outer space, exploring the meaning of the universe and life in the cosmos.
Master of Ceremony: Nir Lahav is a PhD astrophysicist and astronomer, specializing in the science of consciousness.
Deep dark desert, near Black Rock Observatory!
Placement at 5750 & 11:55
Artist ~ Los Angeles CA
Audio/Lighting ~ Richmond VA
Programming ~ France
Astronomy ~ Berkeley CA
We're a crew of seasoned and virgin burners who found one another on burning man's collaboration forums.
Skype, phone, email, video conferencing. We connect, brain storm, solve problems, tinker, collaborate across oceans, mountains, and time zones. We'll finally meet at Burning Man, sink our poles down into the earth and bring to fruition our Midnight Star plans.
Gratitude to Om from Human Lightship, for bringing sound healers and his own music into the midnight ritual.
Shout out to Mr. Robin Hild for contributing expert custom carpentry skills to our off-playa build.
Dusty hugs to Nir Ofek and Zahy Bnaya who helped on our 22-hour (omg!), final build day.
Original soundtrack composed and edited by the artist from astronaut chatter, NASA space-object recordings, inspirational physics quotes, prayer, and more.
Source materials include: human heart beat, gravitational waves from two merging black holes, quasar, Jupiter's whistler mode chorus and electron cyclotron emissions, radio emissions from Earth's neighboring planets, chorus waves in Earth's magnetosphere, SpaceX Falcon launch, Exploration Flight Test 1 launch, Space Shuttle Discovery launch, voice snippets from Neil Armstrong and Carl Sagan, prayer from Dina Fisher, lecture excerpts from inspiring cosmologists including Michelle Thaller, Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Compiled/edited by the artist from various recordings including drums, Indian flute, Tibetan bowls, chimes, and vocals.