Fishbug is evolving for this new installation with the addition of an interactive LED based lighting system.

To complete this evolutionary process we are looking to friends and family to help with the $800.00 we need to fund this this addition.  Please consider a donation, any amount is appreciated.  Donate via:

Paypal: fishbug2009

Follow along with our progress:
Web: www.FishBug.net
twitter: Fishbugchimera
facebook fan page

The entire team thanks you and the Fishbug thanks you.

Go Fishbug

photo by Robert Barbutti

Well hello there fishbug fanatics.

We are terribly sorry that we have forgotten to post anything of relevance here for quite a while. For the most part we have been busy since the playa taking our fishbug on the road and trying to find other festivals and locations for people to enjoy the wondrous creature that Fishbug has become.

photo by John DeVenezia

Since the playa we have enjoyed looking at some of the amazing images taking by talented shutterbugs at Burning Man.  Take a gander for your self at some of them we have collected at our Flickr Fishbug Group.

One of the cooler things to happen post-playa was a Fishbug mention in Nature Magazine. This is one article we could all proudly send home.  I have pasted it below for your enjoyment.

As the holidays are upon us we are all taking a much need break and Fishbug is hibernating at the Shipyard.  What a marvelous year we have had.  The vision for Fishbug began earlier this year as a possibility and through the labor and creative juices of a crew of amazing people Fishbug came alive.  This was made possible with support from Burning Man, Friends and Family.  As this year draws to a close I can’t help but think how lucky we were that some how a talented group of people coalesced in one place for months to push forward this vision.  I hope for more of the same for 2010.

Happy Holidays to all, may art and creativity fill your life in 2010.

love,
The Fishbug Crew.

A creative celebration of evolution

Jason Hodin1, Cory D. Bishop2, Fred A. Sharpe3 & Ruben E. Valas4 ARTS REVIEWED: -Burning Man 2009: Evolution

Black Rock Desert, Nevada
31 August–7 September 2009
A creative celebration of evolution

A sporadic eruption of desert art nods to humans’ ability to adapt.

The Burning Man festival is a unique happening. For one week in September every year, the featureless Black Rock Desert in Nevada hosts a temporary community of artists, technologists and

photo by stuart updegrave

visionaries. Lacking paved roads, water, electricity and any permanent structures, Black Rock City emerges from the ephemeral lakebed, or playa, with a population of nearly 50,000. Afterwards, it disappears without trace, only to be reconfigured a year later.

Fittingly for the 2009 iteration of this social experiment, this year’s theme was ‘Evolution’. In the 23 years that Burning Man has been replicating, certain behaviours have been selected for by the inhabitants: radical inclusion and tolerance, self-reliance coupled with extreme altruism, a gift economy and a leave-no-trace environmental ethic. Add intense creativity, conscious participation, ingenuity and a propensity for hedonism, and the outcome is an unparalleled celebration of the human spirit.

The principal vehicle is art, from giant sculptures and lavish pyrotechnics to countless instances of the most basic art of human interaction: giving and receiving. The ‘man’ effigy is the centre of the festival, both figuratively and literally. This year, the 12-metre human shape hovered over a thorny forest — a tangled bank — atop a giant double helix. The DNA molecule provided a powerful artistic
meme, representing both life’s capacity to evolve through genetics, and perhaps something that needs to be overcome through non-genetic evolutionary paths. Viewed from a different angle, the man seemed to float above a field of sea lilies, placing this celebration of human consciousness in an ancient evolutionary context.

The ‘man’ effigy is the centre of the festival, both figuratively and literally.

by Cheryl Fralick

The most striking image at this year’s Burning Man, expressed in various ways across the city, was the famous “ascent of man” progression from great ape through to modern human, with the Burning Man icon representing the next step. This sequence resonated with the advance in human culture realized in Burning Man. One vision was the Fishbug, Chimera sententia, a creature rising out of the playa with an arthropod tail, amphibian body, mammalian trunk and oversized primate brain.

We created a zone at Burning Man that explored atavisms — reappearances of past events in new contexts — in human social evolution. At our Atavism Camp we created ‘The Spandrel’, a shade structure built with materials salvaged from the ‘boneyard’ at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Marine Lab: leftover materials from past experiments, now reborn for a new purpose. At a symposium entitled ‘Evolution and Society’, we asked how society has interpreted evolution and whether, despite its shadowy past, its principles can guide us to a much-needed behavioural shift towards
sustainability.

In the rampant transfer of culture at Burning Man, on a par with endosymbiotic events, we see hope. Evolution is evoked here on many levels: the adaptation and thriving of the individual in this extreme environment, the various camps as interactive and artistic spaces, the city as it

photo by Jess Hobbs

alters over the seven days and from year to year, exhibiting emergent properties of altruism, shared community and free expression. ‘Burners’ become extremophiles. With resources scarce in the desert, intense sharing is the most efficient practice, suggesting that humans may yet realize a sustainable evolutionary trajectory.

Next year’s theme of ‘Metropolis’ moves the festival a step further. Cities embody the best and worst of humanity, and Black Rock City is no exception. With its preponderance of oversized gas-guzzling camper vans, fossil-fuel-powered generators and gratuitous combustion, it is no Utopia. But the City’s Alternative Energy Zone, with its huge bank of solar panels, multiple experiments in grey-water evaporation, and wind-powered cocktail bar, is paving the way.

Exodus from the barren plain brings us to the comparative paradise of juniper, sage and pinyon jays. Likewise, evolution beyond Burning Man embodies what happens off the playa, how we share and act upon our experiences.

Photo taken by Kimric Smythe

What we do for ART!

Love,

The Fishbug Crew

Much Love,

The Fishbug Crew

Early morning Finishing the Head dome. Who knew we could get up at 7am to do art?	The Multi-talented Judy with the woven innards of our critter.
The finished brain where we will project the dreams of our Fishbug. What will it dream? Just wait and see!	Our amazing and completely awesome hot tub....oh I mean Tank heating system!

Tad in the thorax helping finish the air system	The thorax from the outside	Mark cutting flame guards aka spines

It is very exciting to see it come together, but we are loosing it. See evidence below

Cheryl shows us the crazy love she has for FishBug	Rebecca … well the picture says it all

Despite the crazy people we are continuing to weld, pound and weave.

Gary came back and quickly jumped back into action	And we finally figured out the innards of the bug!

You can help with the finishing touches and make FishBug beautiful!

I thank you, the entire team thanks you and the Fishbug thanks you.
paypal: fishbug2009

Mail checks to:
Jessica Hobbs
1010 Murray Street
Berkeley, CA 94710

Lovely FishBug Cheryl at FAF

FishBug has landed back at the Shipyard after a wonderful debut at the Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival.  We couldn’t be happier with all of the great attention from the crowd at the event. Just wait until we finish it, you are going to love it even more.

We worked through some bugs although we didn’t want to fix them because without them we’d only have Fish. This is terrible I know but don’t blame me for that one, blame Poe.  But it was so bad/good I wanted to share (I can hear you groaning already).

Thanks to the whole FishBug crew for making this happen without your sweat equity and amazing attitudes we wouldn’t have done it. And a huge thanks to the Crucible Staff for creating an even bigger and better event.  Thanks to Michael, Sean, Beth, Kevin, Danny, Micheal C., and the rest of the volunteer/staff that helped make this event happen.

Also take a look at the pages of the latest Common Ground Magazine for a little FishBug news. (Page 42 to be exact).

Fishbug Featured in Common Ground Magazine

Dave Andres
Michael Christian – Elevation
Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito
Department of Spontaneous Combustion
Matisse Enzer – Flamethrower Shooting Gallery
Exxothermia
False Profit Labs
Orion Fredericks
Charlie Gadeken
Gaspo
Ryon Gesink
Wally Glenn
Justin Gray
Kristin Hoard
Interpretive Arson
Jeremy Krentz
Lil’ Ju Ju
Catie Magee & Elizabeth Scott
Mark Perez – The Life-Size Mousetrap
Pyrokinetics
Christian Ristow – The Hand of Man
Alan Rorie – Neuron Chamber
Alexander Rose and Camron Assadi
Jon Sarriugarte
Jack Schroll – El Diablo
Patrick Scott
Nate Smith – Fire Vortex
Kal Spelletich
Earl Stirling
Mardi Storm
Michael Sturtz
Evan Tracy
Team Gnome
Maria Zhalnina

Fishbug is looking amazing and all of our systems seems to be working (cross fingers, I am not Jinxing us by writing this.)

We will post more tonight, but enjoy this from our first fire test Saturday, while all of you fools played in the Sand we were making beautiful art.