Come back shortly for pictures and "how it all worked" commentary!
Capturing the flow of a moment; an instant of a memory. Often, a transition in identity happens during a journey. We leave a place, a past, a frame of mind, headed towards new motion. Somewhere in between, the purgatory between past and future, is a station where the passengers wait. Already dissolved with the past, they wait for the future to arrive and take them forward. Even though it is still and quiet, they can hear it approaching, the ghostly sound of locomotion: a train of new thought; the next instant of memory.

Out in the playa there's a train station. A bench, an entrance, a night light, insects singing their evening serenade. If you sit and listen, then perhaps you will see the phantom train arrive, slithering through the desert. You can get on or not. Maybe it's enough to listen to the other passengers movement for now. Surely there's time. It will come again.

Trainspotting

A Burning Man 2005 Theme Art Installation

By Sasha Malchik and Ami Katz with Marat Garafutdinov (soundtrack)

Special thanks to: Igor Spivak, Maxim Bolotin, Misha Sirota, Ilya Lipkind, Tolik Kuznetz for help in construction!

The train departs from Fetish and 11 o'clock out in the open playa
for those who remember last year's Ambient Armchair Encounter, it's in the same area across the center line, i.e. on the 10 o'clock side of the city

See work-in-progress pictures!

We would like not to reveal more ahead of time. Let the intrepid explorers of the open playa discover the ghosts of the past themselves!

Technical details / materials used section will be added soon.

Some after-the-fact inspiration came from this wonderful short 1950 science fiction story, A Subway Named Mobius.

See my last year's Burning Man project page, Ambient Armchair Encounter

Updated: 24 Aug 2005 sashamalchik