My interview with artist David Best for inGEN magazine
The August issue of San Francisco’s new music and culture magazine, inGEN, has just been released. For this issue, I had the honor of interviewing David Best, an artist best known for his Temple projects at Burning Man. It’s been a while since I’ve been to BM (about 5 years now) but The Temple is something that has always had a profound impact on me, and the images of the Temples I experienced still remain fresh within my memory.
About a year ago, I was thinking about how society would be structured in a post-religious world. By this, I mean a world that has evolved beyond the need for religious institutions. My problem with most religions is that they act not as guides to the individual to help that person follow his or her own path, but instead, the religious organization acts as an authority, proscribing stale dogmas and rituals, and, above all, demanding the individual to conform to this or that system.
Every individual perceives the world in a distinctly unique way. An organization requires a certain amount of uniformity amongst its people. To conform is, in a way, to become less. Instead, it seems an organization that truly seeks to show someone the path to truth, whatever that truth may be, must itself conform to the needs of the individual. It must be fluid, passive, and above all, conscientious of its actions. This relationship between the organization and the individual creates a condition in which the individual must be responsible for his or her self, rather than abdicating that responsibility to the unquestionable laws of the religious “leader.”
With or without these institutions, the human condition will persist. Suffering, conflict, loss – these are all truths within the human experience. People will still need a place of refuge to find solace, peace and a space to reflect. Religious buildings do provide this to a certain degree, but the requirement of these places ask the person to seek a connection to something which is outside that person: an ideal or concept that has been created by the traditions and language of that particular lineage. It seems that for a person to truly grow, to evolve consciously or spiritually or whatever, instead of searching externally for answers, one should examine the self: the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that form the perceptions that are at the root of suffering.
Therefore, a space that is conducive for self-reflection must balance the beauty of aesthetics without succumbing to the temptations of piety and ritual. The structure should allow a person a space to go and gain from it whatever it is they require, whether that be prayer, meditation, social connection, or just a moment of peace from whatever reality he or she subscribes to.
The Temples that Best has built seem to follow this same idea. His goal is to simply provide something for people who don’t have anything. It’s relatively easy to give someone funds or guidelines or encouragement, but that doesn’t necessarily facilitate change. A space that places no requirements or expectations, nor seeks to teach or preach or make a statement upon anyone who enters, becomes a place that truly serves the needs of the person. This new paradigm in design seeks to move beyond our current skylines built of monuments to the ego, and instead seeks to become the architecture of compassion.
