Echo Chamber

The Echo Chamber idea grew out of Dave and I wanting to ramp up and organize more the social activity hangout centers that we kind of stumbled into being/creating over the years, and combining with GoToPaul and his high level of cool shit that does, with the idea of creating even better hang spots. Also tied in to our trash fence city notion of a smaller, more intimate scene, not roped off, but with a kind of 'out there' detachment that allows, as in any good city, a neighborhood to develop a unique identity"

The awesome fun Bedouin Village Allison and you put together last year was a great example and partial template for the Echo Chamber. At the same time, since it will also be our living spaces and learning from last year, we thought have it off the beaten path more than the main thoroughfare we were on last year, and strike a balance between being our living spaces and creating warm (and cool) and welcoming spaces for us, DisOrienters, and our visiting friends. So it's not really a theme camp within DisOrient, but a neighborhood of DisOrient to visit. We also are trying to have the outdoor spaces take some of the entertaining crush off of our RVs (although we love that too). Dave's wiki-posting should somehow relay these concepts in a few words, and at the same time not create some expectations grander than that it is just an another expression of our wacky west coast social/hospitality vibe, rather than sub theme camp within DO.

I am also thinking maybe it is more of a "discoverable" element of DisOrient than a specially/specifically announced one. One of Allison's ideas was to have almost a lion, witch and the wardrobe feel where you enter through a very normal setting and then unexpectedly walk in to a special place.

I hope this makes sense, and any thoughts very much appreciated, we want this to fit in with your goals/conceptions for the camp, DisOrient values, and also be reinforcing the 2010 Metropolis theme. As usual, we envision this will be a positive DisOrient writ large, and a good example of the thought, planning and effort that can be put into smaller sub-zones of the camp as cool hang zones, in addition to the grand DisOrient urban scheme of things and other erogenous zones like The Hut of the GlamTech Warrior. My hope would be that it also provides others with ideas for neighborhoods in the future.

Various notes below:

The Echo Chamber consists of BOROUGHS like New York, with also the city and county structures of New York City layered over, within the STATE OF DISORIENT and the country of Burning Man.

The Echo Chamber is a cell of DisOrient, it is a City (like New York City) made up of two connected Boroughs (like Manhattan and Brooklyn)(temp name here: call them the Paul Borough and the Bacchus/JBB Borough), that consist of various neighborhoods or villages (like Greenwich, Chelsea, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Fort Apache, Flushing, Jamaica, Great Kills etc.) we'll call PODS. For planning purposes, the two Boroughs will have two separate footprints.

Dave is Mayor of Echo Chamber, with a strong City Council of Jodie, Deva, Circe, Jeff, Allison. Paul and I are Presidents of our respective large boroughs, with concomitant responsibilities (and privileges, of course!). Other fun and motivational titles to come, that invest authority, responsibility, get results, and are ironic, witty, funny. METROPOLIS Theming! We also may call the two boroughs Athens and Sparta, but keep the NY neighborhoods for the pods, PresentFuture. Or we won't actually get around to any of that.

Borough/Pods

"Communal" or "Purpose" Spaces or Use PODS

Within Bacchus/JBB Borough: Allison's tents: Blackout Lounge, Dressing Room, Two Theme Lounge tents, Band Tent. These could be one Pod, or can be grouped in to a couple of Pods, like if dressing room is in a slightly different location from Blackout Lounge etc.). Functional Pods (but these are/can be Fun!-ctional): Jon BBQ Zone (may combine with Paul Kitchen Zone) Moving Van Storage Sanitation (garbage)

Within Paul Borough: Paul's Living Room Paul's Kitchen Zone Paul's Workshop Zone

"Private" Living Space Pods

Within Bacchus/JBB Borough: Allison/Jon RV Dave/ Jim RV Deva/Circe RV Jeff M plus 1 RV Jason Tents Zone Allison Moving Van as Fabio living space

Within Paul Borough: Paul RV and entry Jael space

Design with Paul's Living Room as Hub/Center, then adjoin Bacchus/JBB Pods as spokes (thick spokes) off of the Hub/Center. Goal is to have defined spaces for ease of building the CIty/Echo Chamber, while allowing for some organic development changes.

One of the spokes could consist of three RVs with some of the Allison tents in the Center (like we did two years ago, but instead of open lounge in middle it is the tents).

Analogies used have been Parisian Boulevards emanating from a Place, or UK/Euro highway roundabouts, but with the size of the connected pods, the Pods may be more like adjacent clumpings (inartful word) grouped together.

Paul is Executive Officer in charge of responsible for Paul Living Room; Allison Executive Officer for the Allsion tents, Dave and I will be VPs of various shit, we can make up whatever titles or screwy org chart we want as this develops.

So, some of the Bacchus/JBB Borough Pods may be in different parts of the Echo Chamber spoking off the Paul hub; they don't all need to be together.