ABSTRACT
In a slight departure from previous arguments, many of which center on heterotopia as a safe space for artists to create in a supportive environment, even a community that is fiercely devoted to supporting radical participation can make no guarantees that preclude negative repercussions. As in any social space, actions involve varying levels of risk, and risk is of course essentially unstable. While burners love their playa home, few would claim that it is a space of absolute, unrelenting joy. Sometimes it works differently, inviting participation only to answer it with terrifying challenges. To address the contradictory nature of these unforeseen challenges, I employ the performative language of ghosts to a case study that examines the Black Rock City Temple Burn, the final act to a week-long build-up, a space rife with potential for the inexplicable and the unanticipated to rupture expectations for a gentle or predictably cathartic ending to Burning Man. “Ghost” as a critical term has received considerable attention in the field of Performance Studies due to its uncanny ability to signify the phenomenon of being-while-not-being as easy, almost logical. When something is simultaneously there and not there, absolutely present while profoundly absent, or both eternal and always already gone, the poetic language of ghosts feels like the perfect frame.
