WIRED Staff
Culture

Slideshow: Burning Man Mourns the Big Easy

The drowned city gets a New Orleans-style memorial at the annual desert art festival. Daniel Terdiman reports from Black Rock City, Nevada.
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Machine, a large kinetic sculpture by Seattle's Machine Crew, looks stunning with its arms fully extended. Rather than burning their creation, the crew pulled it apart bit by bit beginning Friday evening.

See related story: Burning Man Mourns the Big Easy

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Fire Pendulums

wave huge flames back and forth.
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Passage

, a metalwork mother and child that evoke the passing of generations, throw off an eerie glow at night.
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Rachel Coleman and Lisette Turgeon sit atop their art car,

Rosemary Heavy Duty Extra Fine.
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As the sun begins to light the playa, clouds in the early morning sky take on a fantastic color Sunday at Burning Man.
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Burning Man officially prohibits participants from bringing dogs to the event, but the rules say nothing about cats. Here, "Skippy" sits on the bar at Chez Newt's, a Black Rock City bar.
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Funhouse

, a circus-like maze underneath Burning Man's namesake effigy.
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Temple of Dreams

reins over to Grieve.
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On Saturday night, people gather to watch Burning Man's namesake figure go up in flames. Thousands witnessed the burn.
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A group gathers Sunday on a platform atop a truck to watch the sun rise.
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Hundreds of Burning Man participants attend a Sunday afternoon memorial for victims of the New Orleans flood. The Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping organized the service.
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Flaming footprints trail the metalwork mother and child as part of Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito's "Passage."
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Burning Man's Center Camp Café glows in the early Sunday sunlight.
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The Man

spawns dozens of fire tornadoes, sometimes called "ancestors" by Burning Man participants.
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Two participants, Katrina and Kate, show off their costumes at Burning Man 2005.
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Temple of Dreams

burns Sunday night. The temple conflagration has become the second-most-anticipated event of Burning Man.
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Hundreds of bikes sit every day in Black Rock City's center camp area. Behind them looms Zachary Coffin's

Colossus.
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Temple of Dreams

.
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Members of the Burning Band marching band enter a theme camp for a Thursday afternoon cocktail party.
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Dance Dance Revolution

-- participants who miss steps are blasted with a flamethrower.
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Colossus

.
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Hypha

, a tower of metal that participants could climb to get a good view of Black Rock City.
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Rave Raff

attracts a crowd as it makes its way slowly down a Black Rock City street. A mutant vehicle made to look like a giraffe, the contraption travels at a top speed of 1 mph.
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Phallus de Playa

wait outside Burning Man's Department of Mutant Vehicles, the volunteer group that licenses art cars to drive during the event. Other than mutant vehicles -- which must be permanently and radically modified to hide their base structures -- no motorized vehicles are allowed,
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La Contessa

suffered fatal damage after hitting a rut while driving this year but remained a crowd favorite.
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Clockworks

, a wooden clock tower hailed by many Burning Man participants as one of the best pieces on the playa this year, on Sunday night. Many in Black Rock City had begged McNamara not to burn his installation; it was rumored he had been offered $30,000 to refrain.