Building done, on to the playa

After probably our most productive day thus far (we're still working on Lightuino code) the Garden of Missed Connections is finally finished and ready to be packed up and shipped off. We're going to try and upload a video or two very shortly, but in the meantime build photos are up here. A few selected ones are below.

The Gates

After a marathon 4 day work streak the gates are finally done, dis- and re- and disassembled, and ready to be loaded into the truck and shipped to the playa. The dais is nearly assembled and now we're moving on to the light assembly. More pics to come, but in the meantime, check out Virna's pics here.

Joao, our official mascot, on the front page of boingboing!

Garden backers and friends might be happy to hear that Joao, the (un?)official mascot of the Garden of Missed Connections, was featured on boingboing yesterday morning. ¡Viva lolcats!

Updates for the Garden of Missed Connections

Things are getting pretty busy in the run up to playa time, so a few quick updates...

- The Garden is now listed on the official Burning Man Support a Project Page, here! Woo hoo!

- We've got some great plans to make our lanterns wind sensitive as well as sound sensitive. Details coming soon...

- We're asking anyone who can to chip in a few bucks on our kickstarter (here and at the top of the page) to please help us defray our costs. You can give as little as $1, *every* dollar counts, and everyone who gives anything gets recognized and showered with Missed Connections love. Plus remember that giving us a $1 not only gives us a buck but also gives us one more supporter on our page! It's like "liking" us on Facebook except it actually helps us put the project together.

- Our resident neophyte DJ, Alpha, is putting together a few mixes to get you in the mood for the playa. Details and posts coming shortly...

- A special welcome to any NYC burner list folks and PEXies who clicked through! There are tenative plans to bring a Garden gate to Playa del Fuego this fall so stay tuned!

Dusty hugs to all,

The Gardeners

Our Kickstarter page is live!

Lightning fundraising for The Garden of Missed Connections has started! Our kickstarter page is up and running and we have less than three weeks to get the $600 we've set as our minimum amount to cover our costs! Whether you're a burner, a maker, or just someone who thinks this is a cool project, why don't you mosey on over to our page and maybe think about kicking in a few bucks? A few things to ponder:

• Our costs are all around pretty low so you're getting great bang-for-the-buck on your investment
• This is clearly one of the most fun playa art ideas that's ever existed (okay, there's Thunderdome, and the deep playa shaved ice guys, and Opulent Temple's flamethrowers are pretty boss, and the ship art cars are genuinely hard to argue with, and...)
• If we end up exceeding our minimum we're going to be able to do even more great things with the project, ranging from additional light controls to (if we really get funded) an embedded sound system!
• There's a range of schwag you get for contributing, and everyone who contributes gets their name (however they'd like it to appear) written into this year's Book of Missed Connections

So go on over and take a look! And stay tuned to this site for more news as the project progresses!