Feature Editor / Katie Foreman

Burning Man has been a trending topic in the news for multiple reasons — the death of one attendee, the mud and rainy weather and the unfortunate circumstances that left many attendees stuck in the desert. While the festival was an unpleasant experience for some, for the USD professors and one student that attended with the art collective “Artbuilds”, it was unforgettable. 

Burning Man is a festival of the arts that takes place every year in Black Rock City, Nevada, to bring people together over their love of art and to connect over creativity. The Burning Man festival is a part of the Burning Man Project, which is based on ten core principles that exhibit the values of Burning Man and its community; attendees are called “Burners”. The festival went from Sunday Aug. 27 to Monday Sept. 4 and four USD professors and one USD junior had the chance to be there with Artbuilds. Although there were weather challenges, the mud was no match for their spirit of community and passion for their art. 

Dr. Diane Hoffoss, the chair of the mathematics department and professor of mathematics, is a core member of the art collective Artbuilds, along with three other USD professors — Dr. Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Dr. Gordon Hoople and Professor Nate Parde. 

“The mission of Artbuilds is pretty much to bring joy to people —  joy, playfulness and bringing community together,” Dr. Hoffoss said. 

Dr. Hoffoss helped initiate the art project “Unfolding Humanity” with USD students in 2017, which began as a math class assignment to create a project that represented an unsolved math problem — in this case, an unfolded dodecahedron (a polyhedron with twelve flat faces). Hoffoss then helped build the immersive sculpture that opens up so that people can walk inside of it in 2018 with students. “Unfolding Humanity” got renovated this year, before being displayed by Artbuilds at the Burning Man festival.

The mission of the art piece ‘Unfolding Humanity’ is to represent the math question of Albrecht Dürer, a German painter in the 1500s: can a dodecahedron be unfolded? But it is also designed to show the relationship humans have with technology. The outside of the dodecahedron-shaped sculpture is covered in LED lights that have Matrix code on them, while the inside immerses spectators in a mirrored room, allowing them to be surrounded by images of themselves. 

“I think the students were maybe concerned about the walling off of ourselves from the rest of the world…they saw each of these walls [on the sculpture] as being the one of the walls of technology, and as you folded up the dodecahedron, you were isolated. When you unfolded it, that sort of connected you with the rest of humanity,” Dr. Hoffoss said. “On the inside, there are mirrors, because what’s more human than seeing yourself reflected back at you everywhere?” Dr. Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, a professor of social change at USD and a member of Artbuilds, gave his perspective on the exhibition of man’s relationship with technology. 

“On the outside, all this data is streaming but if you go on the inside in there with these reflections, you’re having humanity reflected in on itself,” Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick said. “And so I love this idea that perhaps inside of technology, we can even find our own humanity, perhaps by escaping from it.”

Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick, Dr Hoffoss and Dr. Gordon Hoople, professor of integrated engineering, agreed that one of the highlights of the experience was the community aspect of constructing it and how connected everyone became at the festival, despite poor weather conditions.

“At Burning Man, there’s no one placard that says, ‘Oh, here’s the QR code, go and find out more about us.’ There’s no name of the artist on the art; you just experience it,” Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick said. “I like building this art with other people at USD with high levels of cooperation and low levels of ego, because it’s an opportunity to demonstrate what people working together across big differences can do.” 

USD junior Valentina Vargas had the opportunity to go to Burning Man with Artbuilds for her first time this year after helping revamp “Unfolding Humanity” all summer and also loved the experience of different backgrounds coming together for a shared purpose.

“I worked with other students throughout the summer, but when I got there [Burning Man], there were electrical engineers and teachers and professors or people who were just like all over the place — in different fields,” Vargas said. “So it was just an incredible experience being a student and having to kind of relate with all those people and share our perspectives. In the end, we were just like an incredible team and worked together every day.”

Vargas said that as a student, she was nervous going into the festival, for she did not know what to expect. But as soon as she got there, she said she felt like everyone just wanted to help each other out and get to know each other. 

“Everybody was literally there to give what they had,” Vargas said. “Everyone was deeply in love with the project and was helping out and there was this really good teamwork going on. And I was really, really grateful to be part of that.” 

Dr. Hoffoss stated another highlight of hers, among many, was the moment of actually experiencing the new and improved sculpture in the desert for the first time. 

“We built the structure — almost all of it — in one day, which was just amazing. That night, I was able to turn it on, and you just never know what’s going to happen,” Dr. Hoffoss said. “We turned it on, and it worked, and I started to cry. I feel it right now. I just felt like the struggle was over…I was elated and relieved.” 

Once the sculpture was set up and ready for viewing, it was a hit. Dr. Hoffoss explained that watching her labor of love bring others so much joy was an incredibly memorable experience for her. 

“Every single minute watching somebody else play with and enjoy the piece and giggle while they’re inside of it, or marvel at something — every single moment of that just went straight to my heart,” Dr. Hoffoss said. “It’s really touching to feel that you’ve created something that’s bringing another person joy.”

Dr. Hoople talked about the unpredictability of the festival’s weather and while it was a very unfavorable situation for some, for others it was what made the festival so special. 

“This was a different, crazy experience than we had expected, but we were prepared for it and everybody had a really good time, and I think it brought people together,” Dr. Hoople said. “It was amazing — I went by  [the sculpture] many times after the rain had come, and the electronics stopped working, and I found people there all the time,” Hoople shared. “There were just people sitting in there in the dark having a quiet reflective moment or people admiring the piece and asking about it, which was totally unexpected and really fun.”

Dr. Hoffoss also felt this sense of community and coming together in tough circumstances to be a part of something that she cares about deeply. 

“It is a chance to do something together that each of us couldn’t accomplish alone. So going out there and working under these kinds of challenging conditions, whether it’s hot or dusty, or in this case, rainy, brings the team together and you feel a sense of accomplishment,” Dr. Hoffoss said. “It’s our whole camp. We kept saying to each other, ‘this is the best Burning Man ever’… not everyone’s experience is the same but for us, it was a really, really positive and beautiful time.”

Vargas shared this positive experience, and although she couldn’t stay for the entire festival, it was still a week and a half of joy, learning and togetherness for her. 

“There’s no way you can actually tell people how you feel about this [Burning Man] — it’s just your own perspective and it’s something you have to take with you,” Vargas said. “Obviously you can share it with other people but the experience of being there, it’s something way out of this world.”

Burning Man may be over, but Artbuilds’ fire for creating and community still continues. Dr. Hoffoss and Vargas both emphasized that the Artbuilds collective is an open space for anyone who wants to join, whether you have art experience or not. 

Burning Man 2023, although hectic, was an event that brought together different departments of the USD community to exhibit and celebrate the beauty of

art.