John Law has been on the front lines of San Francisco counterculture for decades. Though famous for co-founding the Burning Man festival, when it's brought up by SFGate's Dan Gentile "Law makes the universal hand signal for jerking off."
Law has spent his life dangling from vertigo-inducing heights in the pursuit of an art form he describes as "psychogeography," exploring corners of the urban landscape that time has — or at least security guards have — forgotten. As a co-founder of two of San Francisco's most-lasting cultural imprints, SantaCon and Burning Man, as well as a member of the Suicide Club, San Francisco Cacophony Society and Billboard Liberation Front, his resume reads like a road map of San Francisco subcultures. Of SantaCon, the yearly bar crawl bacchanal that started in 1994, he insists the original intent wasn't to throw a St. Patrick's Day-style rager in December.
"We were trying to make fun of commercialism. We went through Macy's chanting, 'Charge it, charge it.' And it blew up, and away from us."
As for Burning Man, at first mention Law makes the universal hand signal for jerking off.
"Burning Man is the least interesting thing I've been involved with," he says.
Another thing you can thank Law for is Survival Research Labs and its weaponized art robots (previously) but that's only the beginning of a long and fruitful life in transgression and exploration: "Before punks turned the Hamm's Brewery into a living space," Gentile writes, "Law and Co. were breaking into it to host art events."
"Doing an elaborate, really involved, beautifully creative event for a small number of people, there's an ineffable essence to that that has so much more resonance," he said. "Not really spirituality, but I don't know what other word to use."
Previously:
• San Francisco celebrates legendary culture jammer John Law at art opening tonight (Friday)
• John Law's The Space Between
• John Law talks Doggie Diner dog heads, urban exploration, Cacophony Society, and more in podcast
• Legendary cultural icon John Law to speak on 'How Everything Started in San Francisco'
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