The Nebulous Entity and Michael Christian | Burning Man 1998 | Reno Gazette

Monday, September 7, 1998
Reno Gazette-Journal

Lights, chaos theory, action the aliens have landed. Their mother ship, about three stories high with tentacles galore, prowled the playa for Burning Man '98 during Labor Day weekend.

The Nebulous Entity is a collaborative art installation created for Burning Man by San Francisco artist Michael Christian with the help of a team of high-tech professionals. But unlike many a sculpture one looks at and perhaps ponders, this piece of art sucks observers in.

Literally.

Dressed in sterile white robes and bright neon hats, the Nebulans "gently convey" viewers to the alien abduction chamber, where techie aliens wave laser wands and use flexible tubes to vacuum information from unguarded minds.

Ariana Menhenett, 25, a software engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., who helped with the work, said the sculpture is intended to help everyone feel connected. "One minute you are looking at this thing and the next minute you're a part of it," she said. "Some people are really shy, saying, 'I'm just going to stand here and check this out.' We want to bring them in and out of their shell."

Burning are out there and they've brought truth-seeking tools pants in the art installation are questioned by an alien with a robotic voice: "I have a need for hundreds of cats. Do you agree with this statement rarely, sometimes, always or never?" Responses are scored on an arbitrary point system. Or for rebellious button pushers, this familiar statement: "Response does not fall within reasonable parameters. Application is terminated."

Christian created the Nebulous Entity at the request of Burning Man founder Larry Harvey. But it took a large team of volunteers to pull it off, including many performance artists and a physicist who designed a computer chip that runs on chaos theory for the organism's lights. A C programmer set up a computer to fractally enhance words spoken into a microphone on the organ- Man on Sunday morning.

"A lot of engineering goes into it," said John Rhoadarmer, an applications engineer from Mountain View, Calif. The builders had to consider the desert environment at every turn. Wheels needed to be able to carry the huge structure but not get stuck in the mud if it rained as weather forecasters had warned. Tentacles were built with newspaper, metal and covered in a kind of plastic to withstand the elements. "Just when you think you are ready, the wind comes in and blows it all down," he said.

Christian, dressed in a light green evening gown and orange boa, said that this work is a little more absurd than the bone sculpture he made for last year's event. "That was contemplative, meditative," he said. "This is something more over the top."

After the run through the alien abduction chamber, the beast and its helpers trilling, beeping creatures mark people with a backwards question mark. "After you finish, you turn into something else," Menhenett said. Just one of many, Burning Man activities competing for attention, the entity proved popular with observers lining up to be abducted.

"They come out with a big grin on their face," said Ranger Lithium, 25, of Vancouver, British Columbia. In real life, Lithium, as his handle suggests, works on the research and development of lithium battery cells, like those used in laptop computers. After viewing a documentary of the event, he knew he had to attend, to participate in art like that of the Nebulous Entity. "People really like it," he said of the project. "They say it's worth the wait." An eager pyromaniacal observer had just one simple and understandable question: "Are you going to burn it?" But, given the nature