From what I've seen in NYC, it's really the burner community keeping things going. They also enable the smaller DIY groups and movements to have places to exist.
The term "burner community" is sort of a catch all for the people actively participating in the subculture surrounding Burning Man. From the POV Im observing [I live in NYC (born here), age 25], NYC area burners seem to have their hands in all things "underground," possibly due to the kind of people that subculture tends to attract. A lot of recurring parties, art collectives and such that I've personally come across and interact with here, seem to be tangentially or directly related to the burner community.
I'm guessing it has to do with the Burning Man but fail to see it's link to New York... Maybe my guess is wrong.
The term "burner community" is sort of a catch all for the people actively participating in the subculture surrounding Burning Man. From the POV Im observing [I live in NYC (born here), age 25], NYC area burners seem to have their hands in all things "underground," possibly due to the kind of people that subculture tends to attract. A lot of recurring parties, art collectives and such that I've personally come across and interact with here, seem to be tangentially or directly related to the burner community.
Seems very interesting. I've recently been to an underground experimental music show in Vilnius. I have to say the music was weird (it's even quite hard to say it was music and not performance art) but the people I met there were all very nice and super interesting.
I'm currently trying to get an artist friend of mine to move to Detroit from NYC. He's a working artist who makes OK money off his shows and sales. OK money sucks balls in NYC, but would be perfectly suited to Detroit. There's no reason a working artist, who has to travel all over anyway, can't live where ever they want. My goal is to convince him that it would be awesome to buy an abandoned building here in the city to fix up and turn into a loft and studio. There are literally dozens of buildings right downtown that are abandoned that I bet we could get at a tax auction for $10-20k. That in itself would be an awesome art project.
You should show your friend Theaster Gates: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/chicagos-opportun...