Compass of the Ephemeral: Aerial Photography of Black Rock City Through the Lens of Will Roger

Burning Man Cultural Co-Founder, artist and environmentalist Will Roger presents 15 years of his aerial and drone photography documenting Black Rock City, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada along with his personal account of serving as Director of Operations from 1996-1998. This includes his time shared with the Cacophony Society to the creation of the Department of Public Works (DPW) and concludes with the design of the city, and aerial photography from 2008-2018.

Compass of the Ephemeral contains a substantial collection of Burning Man historical ephemera and photography by numerous artists and contributors, including the Master Plan drawings for Black Rock City by Rod Garrett, and insightful essays about Black Rock City’s evolution from a small gathering in the desert into a city with infrastructure that serves as a model for other cities around the world today.

Essay contributors include: William L. Fox, founding director for the Center of Art and Environment, Nevada Museum of Art, archaeologist Alexei Vranich, Burning Man Cultural Co-Founders Harley Dubois and Crimson Rose, and, Black Rock City Superintendent Tony ＂Coyote＂ Perez-Banuet.

Will Roger is an artist, teacher, innovator and environmentalist. He is a co-founder of Burning Man. He has served Chairman of Sierra Front, North Western Great Basin Resource Advisory Council and President of the Friends of the Black Rock-High Rock. He was an Associate Professor of Photography Rochester Institute of Technology where he received MFA in Photography.

Phyllis Needham is an American professional that provides editing and proofreading services to publishers, businesses, organisations, academic institutions and individuals. Needham has extensive experience in the areas of editing, copy editing, english grammar, proofreading, ghost writing, and other publishing needs.

William L Fox is a writer, independent scholar, and poet whose work focuses on how human cognition transforms land into landscape. He was born in San Diego and attended Claremont McKenna College. He has edited several literary magazines and presses, among them the West Coast Poetry Review, and worked as a consulting editor for university presses, as well as being the former director of the poetry program at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. In the visual arts, Fox has exhibited text works in more than two dozen group and solo exhibitions in seven countries, served as the Associate Director of the Nevada Museum of Art, and then as the visual arts and architecture critic for the Reno Gazette-Journal. In 2001-02 he spent two-and-a-half months in the Antarctic with the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Visiting Artists and Writers Program. Fox has also worked as a team member of NASA’s Haughton-Mars Project, which tests methods of exploring Mars on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic. He currently is the lead strategist for the Art + Environment initiative at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Tony ＂Coyote＂ Perez-Banuet is one of the co-founder the Department of Public Works of Black Rock City and has been City Superintendent for twenty years. Known as the ＂Bard of the Desert＂, telling stories around the campfire is among the things he does best. He has been blogging under the moniker of ＂Coyote Nose＂ for many years, and he is Burning Man’s first Storytelling Fellow.

A founding member of Black Rock City LLC, Harley K. Dubois has over 25 years of project management, art and city planning experience. As the City Manager of Black Rock City for over 10 years, Harley oversaw both the Playa Safety Council and Community Services departments, ensuring the citizens of BRC are happy and safe, including ingress, life on playa, and egress. She originated theme camp placement, the Greeters, Playa Info, and Burning Man Information Radio, and has kindled the development of all other Community Service teams. Harley also created and maintains a comprehensive training and self-development program for the Burning Man staff, fostering volunteerism and cross-departmental communication.

Alexei Vranich received his B.A from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has extensive research experience around the world in such places as Spain, Italy, India, Peru, and Bulgaria, and Costa Rica. He has been recognized by the National Science Foundation for the innovation application of technology in the study of the past. Bridging the divide between academic and popular archaeology, Alexei has appeared in television and in magazines such as National Geographic, The Sciences, and Archaeology Magazine, in addition to a variety of national and international newspapers. Alexei conducting his archaeological research on Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire.

As a co-founder of Burning Man, the Black Rock Arts Foundation and Burning Man Project, Crimson Rose’s life passion and work have focused on the arts and artistic expression. She began participating in the Burning Man event in 1991, and developed the organization’s Art Department, including the infrastructure, financial and other support services that make possible the large-scale participatory art works that Burning Man is renowned for. With Crimson’s guidance, Burning Man serves as an inspirational limitless canvas, the works of which now find public placement in cities around the world and serve as catalytic sparks for community collaboration. Instigator of the creative energy and Creative Director of the Fire Conclave, the largest gathering of fire performers in one place at one time in the world. Others creative endeavors include: land art, textiles, watercolors & assembles.