From (my column!) Autofocus - KATIPUNAN Magazine: Expression Expansion, October 2007.

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"I wanted to destroy something beautiful," said Chuck Palahniuk in his novel, Fight Club.

More often than not, art is meant to inspire. We gather in front of a work of art to see and appreciate the world in an alternative manner. The way artists go about the creative process is something to be admired, even envied. We take time to take in a particular piece, committing to memory their talent and spunk.

Now, imagine yourself an artist laboring over a giant piece of art for months on end, only to deliberately set it aflame in an annual gathering called Burning Man.
Every year, artists and spectators from all over America gather in an ancient lakebed known as the playa in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The playa becomes a temporary home for some twenty-five thousand people that make up an experimental community paying witness to a demonstration of radical self-expression. The mission of Burning Man is simple: to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture.

The Man embodies particular themes and ideas such as that of Burning Man '06, a 40-foot figure on a 32-foot tall Art-Deco pavilion containing an interactive maze representing hope and fear. This year, the organizers have chosen the theme of The Green Man in light of escalating environmental issues.

In the Philippines, the Man takes on a slightly different form and purpose.

The Man is the highlight of political demonstrations. The Man is paraded along the streets. The Man is a sign of the people's shared intent to topple a represented element. The Man may even well be a woman.

Though different, both Men embody similar insights. What, then, prompts a group of persons to create something that they intend to raze later on? An answer would be that art, being a creative process, deserves precisely that majestic and awesome demise. It takes a great amount of talent to construct something beautiful. It takes a greater amount of guts to deconstruct it.

When we are strong enough to destroy what we are able to help create, a new kind of beauty emerges. Such is our stance when a force larger than ourselves affects us personally, fighting fire with fire.

We will always burn the Man.

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