2nd Annual Southeast Burning Man Decompression!

When: November 21, 2pm, through November 22. YES, two days!
Where: Colaboratory – 825 Warner St., Atlanta
Cost: $10 presales, $20 at the gate
More info: www.southeastdecompression.com

I would be committing a grievous error if I did not express my appreciation for the people who have helped make Co-Lab what it is so far. There are so many people, so I hope I don’t miss anyone! I’m sure I will miss some of Lisa and GBear’s friends, so I hope they’ll thank them separately for me.

Thank you to Sparr, who has spent numerous hours, day and night, helping Justin build out the bathroom, pressure washing the floors, sweeping, moving things and generally being awesome. Sparr is a part of Freeside Atlanta, which is a hackerspace not too far from Co-Lab. (http://blog.freesideatlanta.org/) We hope to work with them as partners for some events and things soon. Thank you Sparr!! (And Sparr’s friend, whose name I didn’t get last night!)

Also thanks to Amanda, who was working with Sparr. I don’t know if she is his friend or someone who came b/c she knew L&L.

Thanks to Atlanta Psy (http://www.atlantapsytrance.net/), who sent out lots and lots of people this past weekend to help. They did everything – pressure washing, sweeping, picking up tire-killing debris from our lot, built things, moved things, planned and schemed. They spent tons of time at Co-Lab, and I deeply appreciate all their time, hard work and kindness. And McKenna appreciated Lily’s visit!

Scottie. Scottie got AtlPsy there, and has been to Co-Lab on several late nights, helping in all kinds of ways, including helping us build the Great Wall of Co-Lab. Thanks for all that you do Scottie, and about caring about this crazy project we’re doing!

Justin and Karissa. Thank you for believing in this thing and getting involved. Thanks for bringing your events to us, and working with us to ramp up for our first shendig! Thanks to Karissa for washing the dishes!

Thank you to Tunna for all you’ve done so far, and especially for getting on board from the beginning!

Thanks to Oji, who has spent two solid weekends with us, sweeping, cleaning, organizing, donating stuff to us, helping deal with the chaos that is the residential area, and for moral support!

Thanks to Sarena, who has been in several times now, and has worked hard on all kinds of stuff, including helping us deal with the nasty glue issue!

Thanks to people who have donated things to us, or who are going to this week: Sean, Candace, Oji, Janiene and Adrien, and whoever dumped off the tires and the countertop

Most of all, thank you to my fellow residents, the Master Colaborators, who have put their blood (literally), sweat and tears, as well as lots and lots of money, all of their time, and arguably at least half of their souls into this project. Thanks for not running scared when you first saw this giant, messy warehouse, and for working hard to turn it into something of which I am so proud! And, I like living with you. We have somehow turned a concrete block and cement floored warehouse into a home! You make me happy, and I can’t thank you enough!

I apologize if I missed people. I know I did. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you – it means I’m sitting in class and should actually be paying attention!!

Our first event is about to happen! We have gotten so much done! If you haven’t been here in a while, you may not know you’re in the same place when you come back.

We still need furniture and lamps. Also, if you have fabric you’d like to donate, we could use that for decorating.

We are also seeking hammocks/air chairs (not inflatables, but the kind you hang), things that could function as kitchen cabinets or surfaces upon which to set a countertop (this is for the Co-Lab bar), and if you have any kind of neon signs you don’t want, let us know.

We are willing to purchase some of this stuff for the right price (as in, pretty cheap).

Thanks again to everyone that has helped, and to those who continue to do so!!

As an aside, there are two ways to follow what is going on at Colaboratory. First is here – you can add this website to your Google Reader or other RSS feed reader, and see whenever someone here updates this site. Second, you can follow us on Twitter, which is linked to the right of this blog post.

Colaboratory is a 23,000 square foot warehouse space. The space is divided into a residential area, which currently houses 6 adults and a child; an event space that consists of a giant single room and several smaller rooms; and an artist/maker space, which as the warehouse is laid out currently, is a long corridor where very soon, artists/makers will permanently house their tools, projects, etc.

The residential space currently consists of two giant rooms, one which is our kitchen and living room area at the moment, and one of which contains three smaller rooms, along with all our personal belongings. We like to say that for right now, we’re living in squalor, because we haven’t yet built out our rooms, and we’re squished into the three pre-existing rooms. Our stuff is all in chaos, but it’s a fun chaos! We will turn our collective attention back to the residential side after our first event is over next weekend.

We have been working our asses off to get the rest of the building ready for doing anything other than just sitting there. 2/3 or more of the building had no power or water when we took possession. It was disgustingly dirty, and full of random crap left behind by the former renter. We have now scrubbed down every room, cleaned out all the detritus, reinstalled plumbing and electrical, and are almost ready to move to the next phase of Co-Lab. The place looks nothing like it did when we moved in. We have spent every waking hour of every weekend, working in here. We spend as much time during the week as we possibly can, working in here. It’s been a LOT of work, and we have had a lot of help from really awesome people who also care about the space, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Colaboratory is going to have two purposes, beyond being where we live. First, it will be a maker space. This means that people will come, bring their tools and supplies, and share any of it that they feel comfortable sharing with the other people at Co-Lab. They will rent spaces from us, and keep things they don’t want to share in those spaces, as well as their personal projects. The idea is that the place is collaboratory. It’s a co-laboratory. It is our hope that people will comment on each other’s projects, get involved together, and make new things or improved things that they might not have had the means or the vision to make on their own. It’s 24 hours.

Where will the money go, that Co-Lab makes from the rent? It will pay our huge electrical bill, our water bill, help to fund things like automating our gate and installing an entry system so people can come and go as they please, safely, any time of day or night. It may reimburse the money we have funded personally to fix the plumbing, rebuild the entire maker space bathroom, rent tools to make the outside usable at all, and reinstall all the electrical on the side of the building that ONLY services artists/makers and events.

The second purpose is to create an event space. We will rent the space based on how much space or how many resources that an event needs in order to be whatever it wants to be. A giant, all night dance party may take up the entire event space, and will use up a lot more resources than would, say, a 2-hour art class, which would take up very few resources and a single room. Therefore, the giant party will pay more to use the event space. The idea is that we hope to facilitate all kinds of different events, classes, etc. We hope to do this as cheaply for event organizers as we possibly can, but obviously we need to take in at least some amount of money to be able to improve this space.

There are two other points. First, we want to eventually own this space. We rent it currently. To buy the space right now would cost us $1.2 MILLION dollars. Clearly, the six of us living here don’t have even the beginning of a down payment for that kind of purchase. We hope that, over time, we may get enough people involved with Co-Lab, through events, maker space, etc. that we will make enough to be able to purchase the warehouse. Yes, that means we will be making some money off our events and our maker spaces. However:

Second, every single person that expends any amount of energy at Co-Lab, helping us make this place run, gets ownership interest in Co-Lab. There will be info very soon on shares, what this means, transparency, and what it means to be involved. It is not a rewards system, it is a system to try to create a maker space for everyone who wants to be involved.

While Co-Lab IS a business, and it WILL (hopefully) make money, we strive to do as much as we can by the Burning Man ethos. We are burners, we try to live by the 10 Principles in everything we do. We consider every single step that we take, and try to align it with these principles. And when we CANNOT align ourselves with the principles, we will TALK about it. Because that’s what this is all about: making something completely from nothing, and doing it the best as we can.

Edited to add: yes, some of us are involved with Alchemy. If you come and help us out because you know someone that lives here because of your experiences with Alchemy, we appreciate it. That’s awesome, and we’re thankful that you think highly enough of us and what we’re doing to want to be involved in other things we do. Co-Lab is associated with Alchemy in so much as we have people in common. Obviously we can’t cut our ties with Alchemy just because we do other projects. However, that’s the extent. Alchemy doesn’t sponsor Co-Lab, and puts absolutely ZERO money into Co-Lab. The only tie is the people, and that’s only because some of us that are involved with Alchemy have some kind of illness that makes us want to take on giant projects like this, over and over. Just so we’re clear.

(With that said, Co-Lab will be donating its space to the Alchemy Art Fundraiser for free this year, so that Alchemy doesn’t have to spend as much sponsoring the Fundraiser.)

Hey everybody!

The Southeast Regional Decompression on the 21st and 22nd is nipping at our heels, and we’re putting in a final big push this weekend to prepare the space for the festivities. Many hands make light work, so if you can make it out this weekend, even if only for a couple hours, we can definitely use the extra help.

A few things we’ll be working on:

- Pulling electrical and wiring some outlets so we can have power to run DJ equipment, lights, etc.

- Moving, consolidating and organizing tools, equipment, and materials into a room outside of the space designated for the event.

- Sweeping, mopping, and/or pressure washing the event space.

- Installing a door to separate the event space from the residence.

- Patrolling the parking lot and land for tire-killing debris.

As you can see, we have quite a bit to do, and just over a week to do it, hence the BIG push this weekend.

We’ll have a keg to aid us in our efforts. Donations toward that, while not expected, are appreciated.

If you plan on coming out for the day, you should know that aside from pizza, there aren’t many quick and easy food options in the area. I’m thinking that if everyone brings a little something, we can make a picnic out of it.

Anyway, the space is really coming along, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, you should definitely stop by this weekend to check it out.

- Lovelace aka GBear