Archive for August, 2009

Artists riding rocket to Burning Man

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Boadway is part of a more than 60-person team of artists, scientists, engineers, and builders creating a sculpture resembling a rocket ship that will premiere at this year’s Burning Man Project, the annual gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that focuses on radical self reliance and large-scale installation art.

This year’s festival will begin Monday and run through Sept. 7, with the Oakland artists unveiling their creation in a 15-minute spectacle Sept. 4.

Led by Orlando and fellow artists Nathaniel Taylor and David Shulman, the rocket ship idea was conceived in napkin drawings and has a retro aesthetic meant to conjure a time when space travel was still a fantasy.
The artists wanted to “focus on a time of pre-space travel, when humans still imagined themselves living and traveling through space “… the future of the human species was very romanticized,” Orlando said.

Read article here: http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_13208664?IADID

All’s quiet at Burning Man–for now

Friday, August 28th, 2009

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“But it was clearly worth a quick bike ride to see what’s up already, and two of the most obvious pieces are the Man–the centerpiece of the festival, this year built atop a forest of wooden sculptures of trees–and the Raygun Gothic Rocket, a 1940s-era spaceship gracing the desert with its stylized presence.”

Read entire article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10320149-52.html

Safe landing and preparing for lift-off

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

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Sean Orlando and the Raygun Gothic Rocketship had a safe landing in the desert early Monday morning. Two semis and an accompanying truck hauled the gleaming piece up from the Bay Area, and it was assembled in the beautiful light of the late afternoon.

It’s a massive thing, weighing close to 5,000 pounds, and there isn’t a more unlikely object to be found on the playa. The rocket is covered with a gleaming silver metal skin, which was stretched on an English wheel and pressed into place by hand.

Read article here: http://blog.burningman.com/?p=5037

Raygun Gothic Rocketship counts down to its launch

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

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“As I write, the countdown timer on its web site tells me that less than 13 days remain till the arrival of the Raygun Gothic Rocketship at its destination, which is either Burning Man or someplace a bit more interstellar.

If you’ve missed it, this is an impressive feat of construction – at forty feet tall! – by the same group of demented designers that brought us the Steampunk Treehouse.”

Read entire post here: Webomator

Retro Raygun Rocket To Take “Flight” At Burning Man

Monday, August 17th, 2009

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Read article here: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/08/retro-raygun-rocket-to-take-flight-at-burning-man/

Not your father’s retro rocket. On second thought maybe it is.

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

“Do you yearn to relive the glory days of space travel, back when the space industry was run by scientists and engineers rather than hindered by politicians and the Military-Industrial Complex? Do you drool at the prospect of riding in one of those oh-so-very-cool retro rococo-style rockets popularly portrayed in the media during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s?

Well, then you better get your Earth-bound behind out to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the Burning Man Festival starting at the end of this month. This year, the annual counter-culture festival will feature a full-sized cigar-shaped Raygun Gothic Rockethip being constructed right now in a warehouse in Oakland, California.”

More here: Science Buzz

Photos: The Raygun Gothic Rocketship

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Rocket Ship Diagram

More here: http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-331981-3.html

Evoking the romance of space travel, 1940s style

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Want a trip back to the romanticism and innocence with which space travel was associated in the 1940s? Then get yourself to Burning Man, starting August 31 in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

That’s where the Raygun Gothic Rocketship, a retro rocket “made” in 1944, will be on display for the thousands of participants at the annual countercultural arts festival to play in and around.

Read the rest of this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10310525-52.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Photos: The Raygun Gothic Rocketship

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

View pictures here: http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-1035_11-331998-1.html

Uira Engine Collaboration

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

0900H GMT, Sol System, 3rd Planet
Uira EngineThe Raygun Gothic Rocketship crew is pleased to announce our joint collaboration with Dr. Wade Enright and Dr. Alan Rorie, with support from Nathaniel Taylor. Dr. Enright is a leading high voltage researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and Dr. Rorie, a high voltage artist working under the name Almost Scientific. Nathaniel Taylor is an artist and fabricator working under the name of Radio Robot Labs.

The result of their collaboration with the Raygun Gothic Rocketship is the the Uira Engine, a kinetic, high voltage sculpture serving as the power source and engine for the Raygun Gothic Rocketship. The word uira means lightning in Maori, the language spoken by the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. The high potential of this collaboration will undoubtedly extend beyond the Uira Engine, and serve as a model for how aesthetic and scientific inquiry inform each other.

The Uira engines will be tested throughout the week at Burning Man, with an initial test launch planned for Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 10 PM PST.