As Burning Man Goes Virtual, Organizers Try To Capture The Communal Aspect

Burning Man — the dazzling, days-long, annual arts and lovefest drawing 70,000 to the dusty Nevada desert — was cancelled this year. But organizers are trying to capture the quintessential, communal arts experience online.

For this year's theme, Multiverse, teams have created 2D and 3D virtual experiences. The program runs Aug. 30-Sept. 6.

The chaos and creativity of Burning Man usually involves thousands of artists and volunteers trekking to the vast, windy, barren desert to build enormous, eye-popping, often whimsical sculptures. This year, you can turn on your webcam or virtual-reality headset to attend an art class or DJ dance party — or even join a virtual group hug.

In the desert, the Burning Man Temple is typically a place spacious enough for people to walk into and reflect, grieve or leave an offering. This year, you can sort of do that at the Ethereal Empyrean Experience with a mobile device, desktop, or VR headset.

Ed Cooke, one of the creators of SparkleVerse, says that to recreate the desert experience, burners — as attendees are called — have set up tents in their living rooms and dressed up in costumes.