"WHY" - a documentary

WHY (Why We Do Art / Why We Do Burning Man)

*** PLEASE NOTE: Other then filming at Burning Man, this project is on hold until funding is found that would allow for the traveling interviews, green screen set up, and editing time. I still very much want to do it when I can but for now please ignore the dates. ***

Why do certain people give up health insurance and ransack their savings to build monumental art projects and drag them out to the desert? Why do some people choose to live in their van so that they can afford some studio space and time to paint?

Using the personal stories of several artists bringing large scale art to Burning Man 2010, 2011, and 2012 (as well as interviews of participants on-playa, other artists and event producers) mixed with interviews of neurologists, evolutionary biologists, and sociologists, this film will flush out the most fundamental answers to the question "Why do we do what we do?"

Do artists have more mirror neurons? Are they more (or more often) synesthetic? What brain processes explain how some types of hard work become satisfying and meaningful while others remain just work? How is artistic drive related to the evolution of communication and community structures for our species? Do the technical and interactive aspects of most playa art equate more right-brain / left-brain symmetries then other art forms? How has recent technology (begriming with the phonograph) changed art from something everyone does to a commodity and how is our culture adjusting or reacting to this change?

Other uses for this footage:

1. I am a VJ as well and so the artistic images captured at Burning Man will be edited into clips for VJ performances at official Burning Man regional events and on-playa at Burning Man.
2. An interactive multi-media sculpture Burning Man 2013 participants can walk through and feel as if they are inside a human brain, experiencing the cause and effect on the level of neurons----as if they we inside their own brains. I picture a small path with headphones and flashing neurons crossing everywhere and each stop along the path presents the participant with several causes or effects (buttons they can press) which cause neurons to fire as well as video and audio to play from a previously unseen screen.

Continue to Project Time Line...

Portfolio

• Building the Portal
• 2010 Burning Man Art Project Fund Raising Videos: Tripods & the Pirate Ship | The Portal
  (Please note: I did not have a proper lighting kit or green screen for those videos... that's one of the things I'll be finding funding for. Also, I now have an HD camera.)
• See the VJ Synesthesia Promo for a peek at just a few of the many stylistic techniques to be employed in the documentary.
• MarchFourth Marching Band Concert DVD
• Full portfolio on vimeo.com/darrow
  
  

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