Literally, accelerant is either a noun or an adjective. As a noun, it is a substance used to aid the spread of fire. As an adjective, it means accelerating or causing acceleration. For our purposes, it is a noun influenced by our experiences as Burners. We are taking what we gained from our years on the playa, combining that with what happened in 2020 in the Multiverse, and finally adding in the French word Salon.
Historically, the Salon began at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris as an art exhibition in 1667. Over the centuries, it has evolved in some circles around the world into a private gathering of artists and thinkers to exchange ideas.
Accelerant is a publicly accessible gathering online where ideas are introduced and meant to ignite our souls into making this world a better place.
No. Accelerant is conceived in part by the Burning Man principle of “Gifting.” We are offering this as a gift with no expectation of anything in return. AND…we are inviting all participants who have any financial resources to support the Burning Man Project through donations of any size. Officially, “We are holding this fundraiser in support of Burning Man Project (BMP), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. This is an independent effort that is not organized or sponsored by BMP.”
Accelerant is built around the Burning Man principle of “Participation.” The Creative Team on The Board of Celestialites devises the theme and secures thought leaders. Upcoming themes include “Decommodification in a Global Pandemic” and “Civic Responsibility When Cocooning.”
Each Salon is structured the same way. The first hour features up to 3 speakers sharing their expertise around a theme and participants who want to engage with that speaker. This is moderated by a member of the Board of Celestialites. This progresses into a second hour of dance music offered live from a DJ somewhere in the world.
Accelerant relies on the participation of as few as 5 up to 5,000,000 willing humans. Technology will afford an opportunity for anyone on any of the selected platforms to be able to see and hear participants from another platform. We ask all to follow the Code of Conduct.
The Creative Team on the Board of Celestialites selects a theme for each monthly Salon. Subsequently, they reach out to artists, thinkers and makers who hold a unique position in their own lives in relation to that theme. Next, we invite anyone in the world to participate in the monthly Salon to engage with the guests. Finally, we add a live DJ who brings us all together in the ritual of dance.
For more than a decade, Celestial Bodies has participated in the Burning Man project. Our theme camp members cover a range of ages, occupations and life styles from San Francisco and the Bay Area, Florida, Sacramento, Reno, Tahoe, Sonoma Valley, Los Angeles, Hawaii and beyond. Our camp members volunteer, both on and off playa.
Our camp’s core goals and responsibilities are to experience, share, gift, participate and support the annual Burning Man Project and its 10 core principles to the fullest extent possible.
We are a relaxed, friendly, no-drama camp (for the most part) that has been together for more than a decade. We started out as a gay camp and have become more diverse camp over the years; therefore, we now lovingly refer to ourselves as a “straight-friendly” camp. And, while it wasn’t planned or ever imagined, Celestial Bodies has become a recognized theme camp and one of the anchor camps in the playa Gayborhood.
Celestial Bodies is a straight-friendly gay bar and lounge on playa. Off playa, we are a straight-friendly LGBTQ+ group that meets weekly via Zoom. The original Board of Celestialites has shown up via Zoom every damn Sunday since March 2020 when COVID-19 forced the world into lockdown. We expect all Board members to show the same kind of commitment. If you are not a current or alumni campmate, we are happy to speak with you about your interest and expertise to join the Board. Each role on the Board has a minimum weekly volunteering hours. They are as follows:
If you are a thought leader in your personal or professional field, we encourage you to reach out to us. Email us at: info@campcelestialbodies.org
We ask that all speakers prepare either 5-7 minutes of some kind of audio/visual representation of their topic or be able to engage in a one-on-one Q & A with our moderator for the first 10 minutes. The remaining time invites the audience to engage with you, managed by our moderator, in response to your presentation and/or Q & A.
We require your audio/video assets one week in advance and to spec (provided under separate cover). We request your patience with the technology, especially in regards to the moderator managing the participants across different platforms. We expect you to respect everyone, regardless of the question they ask.
You can expect from us full technological support, kinship from the moderator and protection from trolls. Trolling is not permitted at an Accelerant event.
Natasha Murray (aka Illuminatty) is a VR DJ who is known for her shows in Altspace VR, Wave XR, Sansar, Neos, Twitch, and Mixer. She has been spinning with Tribe XR for just over a year, remotely bringing an eclectic mix of tech house and breaks to real-life venues around the world. She is currently a resident DJ for VirtualSports, an entertainment center located near Seattle, about 800 miles away from her home in Oakland, CA. Also known for her artwork, she is a featured Oculus Medium artist, and appeared in their global sculpting battle, Road To Tokyo, Episode 2. With a love of blending art and music, she designs her own stages for her resident performances at Wave XR, often using storytelling to embellish her designs and DJ sets.
Crimson Rose, Burning Man’s original fire art dancer, began participating in Burning Man in 1991. Crimson leads the development of the organization’s Art Department, which grants more than $1.4million to artists annually, and is a founding board member of the Black Rock Arts Foundation. Crimson currently serves as Secretary to the Burning Man Project Board of Directors and as a public speaker nationally and internationally as an ambassador for the ethos and creativity that fuel Burning Man. With Crimson’s support and guidance, Burning Man serves as an inspirational limitless canvas, the works of which now find public placement in cities around the world, serving as catalytic sparks for community collaboration.
The Fairy of Trance & her beloved Space Unicorn! Puddles has been spinning Trance & PsyTrance in various clubs in SL every week for over 5 years. From the UK, it is suspected by some that the Unicorn is actually the brains of the duo, doing all the work while Puddles is just an airhead Fairy looking pretty on it’s back! – We couldn’t possibly comment. Join DJ Puddles LIVE at; Fridays – 2pm (SLT) @ The Ministry of Trance. Puddles also regularly spins at: The Buddha, The PsyCircle and Burn 2.0 The Virtual Burning Man Festival in Second Life. You may be lucky to also catch DJ Puddles doing legendary Rave gigs in Sansar.
Over the past 5 years L.O.U has been paving her way through Australia’s music scene as a well-respected DJ / Producer with an ever-evolving sound. L.O.U has graced some of Sydney’s biggest Events and festivals including Ministry of Sound, Return to Rio, and Electric Gardens as well as playing international gigs at Your Paradise Fiji and Singlefin Bali. Warming up for some of the industries biggest names in the electronic music scene she has really started to evolve into a regular name now billed to headline some of Sydney’s biggest parties and holds regular residencies with some of Sydney’s finest collectives. L.O.U has been recognised as a truly passionate artist with a huge love for the music industry. Devout to the House / Tech house sound she has really made a mark with her uplifting signature sets that are always upbeat, you can feel the energy she radiates through her careful selection of music during any show she is billed on.
2017 saw the release of her debut EP “Drifted” signed to house music powerhouse Double-up Records that has won herself a plethora of DJ support around the Globe and debuted at #34 on the Aria charts. L.O.U followed up with a huge release ‘‘Addiction’, she carefully layers her distinct driving tech style with the ethereal tones of vocalist The Baroness to create an alluring warehouse-filling sound. A follow up E.P is well underway and will be hitting all major platforms soon early 2021
Not only has Adriana Roberts been going to Burning Man longer than nearly all the people who run it, but she’s been publishing an independent newspaper there for nearly as long, having launched the legendary Piss Clear — now called the BRC Weekly — in 1995, two years after her first Burn in 1993. She is also the “Queen Mother” of Bootie Mashup, the international music and nightlife brand infamous for championing the art form of the bootleg mashup.
Pre-pandemic, she DJed and hosted pop mashup parties in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Black Rock City, Berlin, and other cities, for 17 years. But now, in the age of Covid, she has pivoted to running a successful Twitch channel, live streaming mashups to a global audience. As someone who likes to “do it all,” she’s also the lead singer of Bootie Mashup’s house band, Smash-Up Derby, in addition to performing burlesque, often as the only transgender performer on the bill.
Marco Cochrane was born to American artists in Venice, Italy in 1962 and raised in Northern California in the midst of the political and cultural movement of those times. As a result, Marco learned respect for oneness, balance and the imperative to make the world a better place. In particular, he identified with the female struggle with oppression and saw feminine energy and power as critical to the world’s balance. In his 20s, on a dare, he explored sculpting and discovered both his ability to capture human emotion and energy and the power of art to amplify.
Self-taught, for more than 20 years Marco sculpted in clay and cast in bronze, primarily women who chose their own poses, their own expressions. In 2007 he attended the Burning Man Festival and was inspired to take his art and his message in a new direction, he just did not yet know how. In 2009 he returned, and it was then he realized how he could enlarge his sculptures to monumental proportions while maintaining their integrity, thus magnifying their impact.
Marco believes that the time we have to solve the problems that threaten our existence on this planet is running out, and that the key to finding real lasting solutions is bringing feminine energy into balance with male energy: a global shift, already underway.
A great DJ understands that it is their duty to not just help their fans have an epic party, but to spend their entire lives dedicated to being able to take their listeners on an irresistibly exciting and inspirational, next level sonic and visual journey.
DJ Celeste’s unshakable love for music, art and performance has led her to spend nearly two decades dedicated to studying the art and science of DJing, music production and music theory with an impressive set of career highlights including, 13+ years as a special event, festival & nightclub DJ, providing sound equipment for & DJ/MCing over 600+ events, acquiring over $25k worth of sound, lighting and DJ equipment, meticulously collecting and cataloging over 23,000 songs in almost all genres, developing a knack for climactic, seamless song mixing, eclectic and inspirational curation and reading a diverse crowd, releasing 5 solo albums and amassing millions of plays of her original music on Spotify, Pandora, etc., Celeste possesses a never ending enthusiasm for providing a top notch experience for her listeners and can say that she is proud to help represent today’s modern, driven female in the entertainment industry.
As a Virtual Reality Artist, Celeste is a triple threat, DJ, event producer and 3D visual artist. She has been tapping the current, most cutting edge technology for design and performance to be able to create exciting, fully immersive performance environments. Truly the future of entertainment, where DJs not only play the music, but also conceptualize and design their own festival type stages and visuals and show up as avatars to perform. She has logged thousands of hours designing 3D modeled art, stages and visual effects for various VR platforms including AltSpaceVR, Sansar, TribeXR and WaveXR.
Dominic Tinio aka the Dark Angel of Black Rock (D.A.) is the Environmental Restoration Manager for Burning Man Project, founder of Playa Restoration (Resto), and creator of the MOOP Map. Burning since 1997, D.A. has been making BRC disappear post-event, leaving the playa clean and without a trace for 20 years. With BRC’s cancellation in 2020, D.A. walked 85-miles to the Black Rock Desert along Highway 447, cleaning up Matter Out of Place along the way while raising funds and awareness for Burning Man’s Project’s 2030 Sustainability Roadmap. D.A.’s Black Rock MOOPATHON cleaned up over 2000 lbs of MOOP and raised $31,000 towards Sustainability – namely, making the Burning Man Pavillion run on solar power. D.A. believes that on the Road to Sustainability, Leaving No Trace is just the beginning.
Katie Sloan is currently leading SCE’s advanced energy solutions for its 15 million customers, including customer solar, battery storage, energy efficiency and demand response programs with annual budget of $500 million.
Katie was previously responsible for developing from the ground up SCE’s vehicle and building electrification programs, with an approved budget of over $1 billion over 6 years, including the largest light duty & medium & heavy-duty electric vehicle utility infrastructure programs in the United States. The team’s mission is to help California get 7 million EVs on the road and convert one-third of space and water heating in buildings by 2030 and is the first and largest team of its kind at a utility in the nation.
For the majority of 2020 Katie held a temporary assignment working on the company’s customer care response to COVID-19 and associated oversight of impacts on the company’s cash flow due to the pandemic & economic downfall. During this time SCE stopped turning off customer’s power for non-payment and provided additional financial assistance.
Previously, Katie held roles of increasing responsibility at SCE & Edison International focusing on clean energy policy, strategy, operations, and analysis. She has also worked at First Solar, a large solar panel manufacturer, developing global public policy.
Katie was named a Woman of Achievement by the San Gabriel Valley YWCA her work at SCE and non-profits. Katie currently serves as board chair of CALSTART, with the mission to build a high-tech clean-transportation industry that creates jobs, cuts air pollution and oil imports and curbs climate change. She also serves on the board of Beyond the Block, a non-profit focused on expanding global awareness and increasing intellectual curiosity of at-risk youth.
Katie holds a master’s degree in regulatory economics and bachelor’s degree in business administration from New Mexico State University.
It’s Funky Boogie Disco that moves this funky soul and DJ Maxxxyt is going to play it at small bars, pubs, parties or on the radio. This funky Australian plays a unique mix of Discoteque Eclectique for your listening pleasure. Musical journey’s include Soul, Funk, Disco, Boogie, Afro jazz funk beats, and boogie funkin disco from all over the globe. Music in all forms will move you and he hopes it does the same to you while your shakin your rump.
Ellie is the eldest, multiracial, queer daughter of an Indonesian American immigrant from Manado, Sulawesi Utara and a badass Viking, Jewish buleh mom from Minnesota, occupied land of the Anishinabewaki, Mdewakanton, and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ peoples. She grew up in immigrant-shaped Brown and Black neighborhoods of Southern California and early on, saw the problems that would later lead her to her purpose. Though she spent much of her career doing social impact work, her political education and radicalism was a slow birth, and happened only through deep and intimate community building, organizing, and her own identity reckoning – and yes, communal effort.
In spite of, or perhaps due to surviving many things, she became an entrepreneur and is a proud owner and principal of the Black-Founded, WOC-owned consulting firm, The Justice Collective, where she serves as Head of Strategy and Culture to bring racial equity to the workplace so people can transform the world while they transform their hearts. It’s a journey.
In between a few credentials, some meaningful recognition, and failures of every kind, Ellie discovered she feels most effective when helping leaders and changemakers feel their best, trusting their talents and wisdom. She’s good at building people up and helping them see their truth more clearly.
Her favorite things are collective liberation, her fiance and rescue dog, shoulder pads, sambal, and putting a fried egg on everything.
Puerto Rican artist NiNo was introduced to the world of arts at an early age when his parents noticed how much he enjoyed drawing and painting. When he attended college at the University of Puerto Rico, he joined the National Student Exchange Program which transferred him to Indiana University where he majored in Graphic Design.
NiNo’s experience as an artist has since been very eclectic. It has brought him to designing sets and shows for stage, film, and commercials in Los Angeles. He was part of the design team for NBC’s TV show “American Dream Builders” and has been working as the Art Director/Prop Master for Ricky Martin since 2017.
NiNo’s favorite projects have been creations that bring communities together, notably the public art project, “Múcaro’s Rising”, a basketball court mural located in Puerto Rico. It was the first of its kind on the island sponsored by the 2K Foundation. The project also served as an outreach program to involve the community to paint and refurbish the court, an experience NiNo was proud to lead. Múcaro’s Rising was recognized with a CODAward as one of the 2021 Top 100 commissioned art installations in the world.
Other public art projects NiNo designed and created are “Got Framed”, a popular interactive art installation at Burning Man (2015 & 2016), recognizing him as the first Puerto Rican to bring art to Burning Man, and the wise woody owl named “MÚCARO” which received the 2017 Burning Man Honoraria Art Grant. He recently received his second Honoraria Art Grant to bring a new interactive art piece “ATABEY” to the 2022 event.
NiNo owes a lot of his big art fabrication and installation experience to his years working at one of the best U.S. art fabrication houses, Carlson Baker Arts. He has had the opportunity to collaborate with renowned artists such as Christian Moeller (“Cactus” at the Henry B. González Convention Center, San Antonio Texas) and Pae White (“Woven Walk” at the LAX, Los Angeles Tom Bradley International Airport).
In 2021 he joined forces with his talented friend Thomas Dambo, fabricating five of his world-renowned troll installations at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine called in “Guardians Of The Seeds”.
What fulfills NiNo the most is creating spaces that provoke thought and conversation. He loves seeing people being stimulated, and better yet, inspired to create, thrive and dream BIG.
Rachel Hundley “retired” from a career as a corporate litigation attorney in New York City to move to California and open a fried chicken business. The goal was to put down roots in smaller city where she could be more involved in the community, and a year later Rachel found herself buying a food truck and running for the Sonoma City Council. She surprised everyone, including herself, when she won that election and became Sonoma’s first elected millennial.
Rachel served as the Mayor of Sonoma in 2017 when unprecedented wildfires swept across the North Bay. Her growing passion for local government inspired her to close her five-year-old fried chicken business, reinvent herself as a public law attorney specializing in municipalities and special districts, and run for a second term on the city council in 2018.
Rachel’s reelection campaign took an unexpected turn when she received an anonymous email stating she should reconsider her second run or else she would be “exposed.” The email included a link to a new website about her. Although this was not Rachel’s first run-in with a malicious website, this one added a new angle. Using photos of Rachel from Burning Man, the website stated she was too “immoral” and “unethical” to continue leading the city. Rachel’s response—a four-minute video posted to YouTube entitled “Sonoma Councilwoman Says No to Slut-Shaming”—went viral, and her story was reported across the country and around the world in national and international news media. Rachel won her reelection with the most votes in the history of that race. She currently serves as Vice Mayor.
Rachel is a native of the Deep South where she earned three undergraduate degrees from the University of Georgia and a law degree from the University of North Carolina. She currently services as General Counsel to four special districts in the Bay Area. Rachel also serves on a number of boards, including serving as chair of the Sonoma County Mayors & Council Members Legislative Committee. In her free time, Rachel paints birds and portraits of her two pets, Dr. Frasier Crane (kitten) and Sam Seaborn (dog). She is married to Sean Hamlin, who proposed during public comment at a City Council meeting in 2017.
