Video Buoy

In 2002 Nick Cain and Max Cain built Video Buoy, an art project for the Burning Man festival. Placed on the playa as theme art, the piece was fashioned as a marker to guide festival-goers. Video Buoy consisted of tower made out of aluminum tubes. It stood about eight feet high and two feet wide with a six foot mast off the top. Inside the tower hung a clear plastic box, which held a laptop computer with its screen visible. The laptop played an original film created by Max that featured Nick as a man who washes up on a beach lost. The soundtrack was audible via small speakers and the piece was lit with a strobe on the top of the mast and electoluminsecent wire along the sides.

The piece was installed and generally worked well, although the computer had to be removed from the lexan box every morning before the sun got to intense. This lead to several near melt-downs.

After a trip to Decompresion '04 and a showing at Cellspace, Video Buoy was converted by Max into a weather station (pictured below) featuring a hand-made EL-wire sign.