The RayGun Gothlic Rocketship to Debut at 2009 Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV

For Burning Man 2009, that wacky event taking place in the Nevada desert each year, a group of about 60 artists, scientists and engineers is working on a large, stylized rocket ship called the RayGun Gothic Rocketship. Intended to invoke the romantic notion of space travel before it became reality, the rocket is meant to look like a 1940s-era spacecraft. The artists have been building it in Oakland, Calif., and it will be installed at Burning Man, in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Late in the event, there will be a "launch," and thousands of participants are expected to be on hand to watch what happens. In this artists rendering, the 40-foot-tall rocket is seen as it will look, on the Black Rock Desert, alongside its 25-foot-tall gantry.

The designers say The RayGun Gothic Rocket is a "rococo retro-futurist, future-rustic vernacular between yesterday's tomorrow and the future that never was." Adding it is "intended to creatively explore our ideas about evolution and technology as they relate to our notions about progress and The Future. This project exists at the blurry edge where science and fiction blend and become both our reality, and the stories we tell ourselves about that reality."

The RayGun Gothic Rocket launch should be an interesting cultural commentary event.