幻灭之美 | 永恒的瞬间——"灰烬之灰"

For 32 years, Burning Man has created a temporary sanctuary for those looking for an escape. The experiences that become manifested there, however, are permanent. All moments exist for the rest of eternity to those who witnessed it, and remain forever unknown to those not in attendance. There are no decaying structures locked in a storage unit that are only a mere shadow of their former self. Everything that happens in that hallowed desert playa is absolute, finite, and fleeting.For 32 years, Burning Man has created a cathartic experience out of immolating spiritual and human structures. Intricate and thoughtful temples are created with the sole purpose of destruction at the end of the timeline, touching as many people’s lives as possible before it goes up in flame......however, what happens to the ashes? The flickering particles that blow away in the wind and mix with the sand, signifying the end of the spiritual adventure and a return home. Where do they land? How much has accumulated? And what rises from their demise?Inspired by Cedric Price’s Fun Palace and ideologically in between a ‘factory of labor’ and a ‘factory of leisure’, Ashes to Ashes re-imagines City Hall as a cybernetic incubator for human experience and interaction. Using Burning Man and an evocative amalgamation of industrial forms to propagate a social environment that is both ethereal and non-temporal, it helps create a ‘factory of society’. By integrating the post burn materiality and liturgical logics of ash, its sustainable and spiritual meanings create a familiar yet foreign sight that, as the burning ‘mantra’ intends, melds both institution and industrial into a singular civic structure that eventually, through erosion, gives up the ghost.