History

A Brief History of Disorient

- Late 2000, a small group of veteran burners with art and music backgrounds get together in a loft downtown NYC to start a camp at BM. The intention of this nascent collective is to create a safe space for everyone to express themselves freely while caring for each other, a community based on art collaboration.
- Leo has a clear vision for our camp and suggests we call it Disorient.
- 2001: First Disorient camp at BM, about 50 campers. Zero gravity chairs line the inside of a geodesic dome covered with projections behind our frontage composed of two gates on a 100' wall made of scaffolding wrapped in glowing orange mesh lit from inside with orange spotlights.
- Bringing the playa energy to the NYC underground Disorient starts organizing fundraisers, small parties at first that evolve into 1000+ people raves throughout the aughties.
- 2002: D1 was revelatory. We decide to bring Disorient to BM again in 2002.
- 2003: Our Passion for house music brings us to the 10:00 corner.
- 2004: Large Sound area on 10:00. First Disorient Sign 83’ long. The concept of Pornj emerges.
- 2005-2007: Attracted to the deep playa and yearning for mobility, we purchase a school bus to create the Disorient Express (DEX). The first three letters of our sign "DIS" are mounted on a side of the DEX, while the letters "ORIENT" are mounted on the pallet rack in front of camp. It is disorienting for burners to have a part of our camp frontage roaming around BRC and deep playa.
- 2007: First GlamTech event in NYC.
- 2009-2010: Disorient Art Car Wash as camp frontage at BM.
- 2011: 2:00 corner, First Geodesic Temple defines a 100’x 100’ dance floor. After organizing parties in NYC for 10 years we are drawn to greater pastures. First Country Club camp out upstate NY, now a yearly week-long event.
- 2014: First Bedouin Tech camp out in Dubai.
- 2016: First Fun Tsang camp out in Hong Kong.
- 2017: Teatro Di Sorient as our BM camp frontage.
- 2018: Temple of Incompletion, first large Geodesic Temple burn at BM. Pod Mahal, a 5 story tall pallet rack based camping solution.
- 2019: Geodesic Temple goes pop with the Temple of Brad Pitt.
- 2021: First Burning Mantap, a "Disorient Unplugged" beach event beyond electricity in Bali.
- 2022: Creation of the Disorient DAO.

Fun Facts

- Since its inception, Disorient camp at BM has been placed on Esplanade every year except in 2004, 2008 and 2018.
- Number of Disorient campers at BM has varied from about 50 our first year to 328 in 2014. Informed by Dunbar's number and our experience, we now try to stay under 200 campers.
- Disorient is a training camp. We turn campers into DOers. We aim for 30% of newbies each year. They learn with us then, if inspired, go out in the world to create their own camps. Many BM camps and major BM events around the world were started by DOers.
- Once a DOer, always a DOer.