portalofcollectiveimagination.com · Black Rock City · Burning Man 2026

Portal of Collective Imagination

A 16-foot arch of light, voice, and shared wonder: where every presence leaves a trace, and the future is something we imagine together.

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Artist: Kim Carson
Studio: Kim's AI Imaginarium
Grant: Burning Man Honorarium

07: Support the Portal

Help Build the Threshold

The Portal is made possible by the Burning Man Honorarium grant: and by a community of people who believe imagination is worth investing in.

Get On Board and Help Us Make Big, Meaningful Art

The Honorarium grant covers an important portion of the build, but it does not carry the entire piece to the playa. To bring the full vision to life: prefab truss, LED display surfaces, sensing hardware, power, transport, engineering, and installation: we are raising the remaining support through community donations.

Every contribution helps turn the Portal from a luminous plan into a living threshold on playa. If you can help financially, choose the giving path that works best for you below.

Donate Through Crowdfunder Donate Through Five Ton Crane

Five Ton Crane is serving as fiscal sponsor for the project. Donations help fund materials, fabrication, transport, and installation. Questions about major gifts, sponsorship, or in-kind support can still go directly to kim@portalofcollectiveimagination.com.

Build Crew

Volunteer With The Portal

Build Days take place at Shulgin Farm. Upcoming days are scheduled for August 1, August 2, August 8, and August 9. Register to join the build crew and follow the full PCI build calendar on Luma.

Join The Build Crew

Upcoming Events

Gather Before The Threshold Opens

Preview Event

Pre-Burning Man Portal Preview

Join the community at Shulgin Farms for a preview gathering before the Portal heads toward Black Rock City.

RSVP For Preview Event

Coming Soon

Happy Hour

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01: The Installation

A Threshold Between Worlds

The Portal of Collective Imagination is a 16-foot circular arch built on prefab truss: a luminous geometric halo rising from the playa, clad in programmable LED panels that transform the structure itself into a living canvas.

Daytime render of the Portal showing the 16-foot prefab truss arch and LED display cladding

Current render reflecting the truss-based structure and LED display interior.

02: The Experience

What Happens When You Step Through

Inside the Portal, every movement, voice, and breath becomes part of the artwork. The installation's AI system listens, reflects, and responds: not to extract data, but to honor presence.

Motion Awakens Light

Embedded sensors detect your approach. LED arrays respond in real time, tracing your path through the arch with rippling light.

Voice Becomes Poetry

Directional microphones capture whispered words, breath, and tone: transforming them into flowing poetic text and generative visuals.

Sound Wraps Around You

Ambient, directional speakers create an intimate sonic environment contained within the arch's footprint.

The Portal Remembers

Every interaction contributes to a cumulative memory field shaped by the collective imagination of Black Rock City.

Nothing Is Transmitted

The AI runs entirely on local edge hardware: no internet, no cloud, no data leaving the playa.

03: Philosophy

Technology As Mirror, Not Machine

The Portal reframes artificial intelligence as a modern storytelling companion: inspired by ancient traditions where knowledge was shared through ritual, rhythm, and participation.

In a world increasingly driven by automation and isolation, the Portal offers a space to remember our shared creative intelligence. It is not designed for efficiency. It is designed for reflection, empathy, and wonder.

Imagination is not frivolous: it is foundational.

04: Materials & Sustainability

Built To Last, Designed To Leave No Trace

Structure

Industry-standard aluminum box truss, precision engineered for high-wind desert conditions, with LED panels cladding the full interior of the arch.

Power & Technology

100% solar photovoltaic with lithium battery storage, weatherproof RGBW lighting, LED display surfaces, and local edge AI with no internet required.

05: Radical Inclusion

Designed For Every Body, Every Voice

The Portal requires no technical literacy, language fluency, or prior art experience to participate. Movement, sound, silence, and curiosity are all valid forms of contribution.

Quiet presence matters as much as bold engagement. The work is a direct counter-narrative to the idea that AI belongs only to the technically fluent, making collective authorship visible through everyone who passes through.

06: The Artist

Kim Carson

Founder of Kim's AI Imaginarium. Artist, technologist, and Burning Man Honorarium recipient working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, embodied experience, and collective imagination.

Kim's practice centers AI as a tool for reflection, empathy, and shared authorship: not extraction. The Portal of Collective Imagination is her first major public installation, and a direct expression of her belief that creative and technological futures must be shaped by many voices, not just a few.

The Portal began as something I conceived alone, in the dark, with AI as my collaborator. But it was never meant to stay there. It only comes alive in community. That's the whole point.

Step Through.

The future is not something that happens to us. It is something we imagine together: one threshold, one voice, one presence at a time.

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