Do avatars weep? Ritual and sacred space at virtual burning man
In 2020, the organizers of Burning Man, a transformational festival that serves for many participants as a spiritual destination, decided to go virtual. Some ‘Burners’ dismissed a virtual festival as a ‘video game version’ of the event, while programmers and artists developed online venues that woul...
| Published in: | Religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
2022
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| In: |
Religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Burning Man (Event)
/ Internet videoconferencing
/ Ritual
/ Spirituality
/ Embodiment
/ Transitoriness
/ COVID-19 (Disease)
/ Pandemic
/ History 1990-2020
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion TK Recent history ZG Media studies; Digital media; Communication studies |
| Further subjects: | B
Festivals
B Material Culture B Ritual B Mourning B Burning Man B Virtual Reality |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 2020, the organizers of Burning Man, a transformational festival that serves for many participants as a spiritual destination, decided to go virtual. Some ‘Burners’ dismissed a virtual festival as a ‘video game version’ of the event, while programmers and artists developed online venues that would facilitate transformation, a sense of community, and ritual activities, especially those around ‘The Temple,’ the spiritual heart of Burning Man. Based on twenty years of ethnographic research at Burning Man, this article will compare the event in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to the virtual version by focusing on central themes that speak to the effectiveness of online rituals in the time of Covid-19. Through a variety of embodied practices like making offerings, meditating, and dancing that elicited sensual memories and emotions linked to past experiences at Burning Man, participants effectively transposed the face-to-face event in a distant desert to intimate spaces in their homes. |
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| ISSN: | 1096-1151 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2022.2051801 |