How Burning Man Failed

Despite all the crises we face – the cost of living, climate change, AI – any of which should surely be enough material to inspire real and meaningful art, the overwhelm of information paired with exhausting post-capitalist forces has created an atmosphere that is nihilistic and excruciatingly mid.

Today’s economic constraints may be enforcing a degree of sobriety, but even before the pandemic, the easy money was clearly concealing a stagnation. This is the thesis of the Umami essay: that material progress had plateaued, leaving us to manipulate symbols and create the mere illusion of value (this is also what David Graeber argues in his “we w

Today’s economic constraints may be enforcing a degree of sobriety, but even before the pandemic, the easy money was clearly concealing a stagnation. This is the thesis of the Umami essay: that material progress had plateaued, leaving us to manipulate symbols and create the mere illusion of value (this is also what David Graeber argues in his “we w