Art Projects
The primary goals of the group are to promote art and facilitate community development through large scale collaborative projects, with an emphasis on interactive art. Many of our projects have an immersive, almost theatrical element, where we create an environment much like a theatrical set in which all participants play out their experiences. In addition to the visual art projects below, our events also support musical performances (a mix of live music and DJs), and audio-visual art (visual jockeys).
Most of our projects are shown only at arts festivals and events. A substantial percentage of our time and resources are devoted towards transporting, building, and displaying our art projects at these events, and providing camp infrastructure to our members in the form of communal spaces and kitchens. Recent festivals include Burning Man, Critical Mass, SeaCompression, and the Phoenix Festival. In the future, our goal is to enable the exhibition of large scale projects on a more regional level. Projects at many events and festivals also require a fair amount of administrative support and infrastructure, so skills and volunteer hours also include: project management, meeting facilitation, treasurer, secretary, documentation, web development, technical support, transportation, builders, cooks, grant writing, etc.
The following projects were either completed by the Space Virgin Arts Collective as a whole or by a subset of Space Virgins as indicated.
An immersive, 15 foot environment shaped like a brain. In the center of the brain was a brain-stem structure with five attached holographic goggles. Burning Man 2001. |
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Revirginization Ritual An interactive installation, occurring over a 20X40 staging area, where participants experience the four elements (earth, air, wind and fire) with the goal of reclaiming their inner child. Burning Man 2001 |
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Princess Cage
This cage was built to capture people and transform them into princesses. A trunk full of dresses was placed temptingly inside the cage. Once people were inside rummaging through the trunk, we locked them in. They then had to negotiate with passersby to be let free. Burning Man 2001 project, a collaboration between Shelly Farnham, Dave Vronay and Weiru Cai. |
 
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Interactive experience, having audience members at a costume parade become a part of the show. SSSeaCompression 2003, Luminous Flux 2004. Brainchild of Pat Cole. |
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A15 foot structure shaped like a crashed space ship, crashed into an ocean floor. Inside the space ship an interactive musical console made out of 20 children’s toys embedded in foam and wired to a guitar amp. This project examines how a childish sense of play may imbue people with the ability to explore new places. People could play the toys collaboratively. This project appeared at Burningman 2002, and in parts at the Phoenix Festival 2002, and SeaCompression 2002. |
 
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Demon Containment Unit
This project explores the psychological impact of making structures to burn them, knowing they represent inner demons. Several human sized demons were made as models, and then we had a "demon making workshop" to help others make demons. The demon containment unit and workshop were a 2002 Burning Man project. All demons were burned. |
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A garden made out of rope lights sculpted into 2 to 8 foot flowers, with several life-sized dancing human figures dancing amongst the flowers. Hive-Mind Halloween Party, 2003 |
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As much as possible we try to incorporate art projects into our fundraising events. For a Halloween party, we created 6 8 foot monsters cut out of plywood to allow people to stick their heads through the mouths and claws. We created 5 8 foot dancing skeletons, and a 20 foot wall installation of ghosts made out of life sized plaster body casts. IIn collaboration with Area47, 2003 |
 
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We transformed a room into an underwater world, including fish, netting, kelp, etc. Like Virgin Party, 2002, Burning Man 2002 |
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We created a 32 foot geodesic dome, with a hand sewn cover made out of sail cloth, and decorated the dome to look like a Persian pleasure palace, with draperies, rugs, and pillows. Critical Mass 2003, 2004, and Burning Man 2003, 2004 |
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Space Virgin Temple
We built a 1/3 scale facade of the Parthenon. The facade was built so that people could stand in the pediment much like greek statues. At Burning Man 2003, 2004, columns have appeared at Rapture Party, SeaCompression 2003, 2004 |
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Oracle This project explored people's ability to make meaning out of the most random information. A booth was set up with an "Ask the Oracle a Question Sign" sign, and an arrow pointing to a button. When the button was pressed, the oracle answered from a random selection of hundreds of oracle statements found online, spoken by four synchronized female voices. The Oracle was a 2003 Burning Man project. It was 2 x 8 booth made out of plexiglass and four mannequin heads. The booth lit up with the oracle button was pressed. Burning Man, 2003 |
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For a couple of event we transformed a room into a galaxy, including a solar system with 4 foot planets and a 20 foot milky way. Critical Mass, 2004, Luminous Flux, 2004 |
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We created an interactive experience that emulated what it was like to land on an alien planet, including a decontamination chamber, a tourist office, an alien forest, and indigenous inhabitants that interacted with participants with unexpected cultural norms. Luminous Flux Party, 2004 |
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Virgin Goddess A Virgin Goddess was created to play the role of a ritualistic virgin sacrifice. The structure included a fountain component, with water pouring out of her hands to bless her worshippers. People wrote notes on the form before it was burned. The Goddess was a 2004 Burning Man project.
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