Temple of Brad Pitt
Temple of Brad Pitt (TOBRIT) a sculpture by Geodesic Temple at Burning Man 2019
Summary
The Temple of Brad Pitt channels the famous Hollywood actor. It captures Brad Pitt’s aura, extracts the essence of his being through data gathering and redisplays it as a performative sculpture at Burning Man 2019 enabling participants who enter a special apparatus to briefly experience what it is to be him.
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Physical description
The Temple of Brad Pitt (TOBRIT) is composed of 4 distinct elements
The Temple
A 40ft. tall structure made of several identical octahedra. Following Geodesic Temple’s design principles, this structure is the central architectural element of the Temple and visually defines it.
The Purgatory
A semi-private chamber. The main feature inside TOBRIT, this chamber serves as preamble and waiting room to the Ark. It can hold a dozen people and is a receptacle for offerings. (Some believe that the grander the offering, the higher the ensuing bradpittization.)
The Ark
A closed chamber large enough to accept only one person. Entering the Ark is the next step toward becoming Brad Pitt. Although it is possible to experience some level of bradpittization anywhere inside the Temple, players are encouraged to place their bodies inside the Ark for best results.
The Encephalus
Designed to host the head of the person inside the Ark, this exiguous space is the theatre of the second metamorphosis. It is recommended to stay there about one minute (do not look at your watch). A place to quiet the mind and expand consciousness; to let go and explore the infinite within. The place for enhanced bradpittization, the Encephalus is where most players will experience the deepest sense of being Brad Pitt. The most sacred space of the Temple.
Dimensions
30’x35’x40’
Interactivity
Playing along with the Metamorphoses theme of this year’s event, TOBRIT addresses questions of presentation and interpretation of data as well as the role of belief in the transformation of self.
The piece offers two distinct metamorphoses. First, the visual metamorphosis of information takes data from one state of representation to another. Concatenated through different filters (iterative process), different output streams (generative design), the same data produces different results. One is the existing primary source (Brad Pitt himself) from which the data is extracted, the other is the sculpture which is created based on data collected from the primary source. Secondly, the ontological metamorphosis, experienced by individuals entering the Temple and positioning their physical bodies inside the Ark, leaving their own selves to become Brad Pitt for a few seconds of eternity.
The interactive dimension of the sculpture resides in the realization of one’s interdependence with the piece: to get something out, you must first put something in. In other words, you have to believe. It is transformative and performative, to be played like an instrument and, as such, is a metaphor for Burning Man itself.
DO
- Recognize that a sense of being Brad Pitt will meet the user willfully entering this sacred space with openness, determination and conducive intentions.
- Quiet your mind when you stand inside the Ark.
- Relax when inside the Encephalus
- Stay in the Encephalus until you stop being aware that you are in the Encephalus at which point your bradpittization will have likely taken place
DON’T
- Speak loudly inside the Temple.
- Disturb the bradpittization in progress.
- Expect a figurative representation of Brad Pitt.
Mission
TOBRIT projects the visitor inside the aura of the actor , allowing her to experience Mr. Pitt from within, what it feels like to be him, what it means to be Brad Pitt.
Data gathered from a variety of sources linked to the actor’s life such as, psychological profile, names of characters he portrayed in movies, astrological theme, face recognition parameters, etc. are fed to the AI engine to help determine the physical characteristics of TOBRIT through generative design and a recursive process.
Positioned at the intersection of science and alchemy, mysticism and mathematics, physics and spirituality, TOBRIT embarks on the courageous task of opening a door of perception for the player, and provides a download that, once experienced, cannot be forgotten.
Philosophy
Just as in the age of mechanical reproduction only the aura of the artwork remains as Walter Benjamin argued, TOBRIT points at a not-so-distant future when its aura is the only remaining sign that humanity as we know it ever existed. The human race, dematerialized, reshuffled, is not eliminated but perpetually rehashed. TOBRIT provides the user with access to an instance of this state of perpetual transformation. The little that seems possible to us today is trivial achievement in the grand scheme of things. Everything is possible. The key is inside each and every one of us.
 
Possible data source: - Number of words in first 5 articles returned by Google on Pitt - Number of letter “a” … - Number of letters … - Pitt’s astrological theme (portrait.php)
- Data from Brad Pitt’s quantified self - BP’s facial recognition points - BP’s emotion recognition points - Brad Pitt by numbers - A numerical portrait of BP - Numerology
Development notes:
Being Brad Pitt A sexy cocktail of data brew and ontological metamorphosis with a dash of phenomenological description
As the moth metamorphoses into a butterfly the outside elements of both time and space are inextricably involved in the evolution
hermeneutics
The Ark Should the Ark be made to the size of Brad Pitt? The Ark is a transport and guidance apparatus that provides total darkness and muffles outside sound.
This courageous experiment goes beyond just translation
Can collections of data, keypoints from a face, can be considered a phenomenological description of the subject?
How do we navigate those realms and how does such a result plays-out in relation to the sacred
A shortcut that allows the user to become the other rather than to simply see the world through the eyes of others.
The resulting sculpture, one of many possible outcomes of generative design, explores the dichotomy at the heart of the relationship between man and non-man. Where do we fit in the universe? What do we keep and what do we to let go? Do we own our own life? (Spoiler alert) We intuit that the result is a draw. No one wins; no one loses, everything is transformed. Continually.
 Repetitive small version of the whole. Fractal. How to produce large amounts of a small wooden OH?
