Rohan Roberts—known on the playa as Astro—is a long-time member of the Black Rock Observatory crew, where he organises Space Talks during the day and spends nights helping Burners peer into deep time through telescopes aimed toward planets, nebulae, and the distant shimmer of galaxies.
​
He has been to eleven Burns on three continents and served as lead designer and architect of the Temple at the 2017 Netherlands Burn.
His work often explores the overlap between cosmic perspective and human imagination—the same impulse that drives people to build impossible things in the desert and then let them burn.
Burn Brilliantly
Rohan is the editor of Burn Brilliantly, a collection of quotes and digital art that aims to capture the awe, and wonder that so many Burners feel at the event.
The excerpts and citations in this book have been curated from various sources including, overheard conversations, blogs, Reddit threads, and an eclectic set of authors who’ve written about Burning Man and have experienced first-hand the magic of Black Rock City.
The astronomy-themed digital art created by Rohan have been selected to capture the whimsy and other-worldliness of the Burn experience.
.png)
.png)
Art Exhibition
Burn Brilliantly was an art exhibition of Rohan Roberts' digital prints that took place at the Volte Art Projects gallery in Dubai's Al Serkal Avenue.
The exhibition aimed to capture in digital art form a sense of the numinous that we feel when we contemplate the vastness of the cosmos and juxtapose it with the sense of awe and wonder that Burners feel when they’re out on the playa at Black Rock City where Burning Man takes place every year.
The exhibition also featured a screening of the film "Burning Man: Art on Fire" and talks by:
-
Noah Raford (Chief Futurist, Dubai Future Foundation)
-
Kevin Russell (Creative Director, Angel Protocol)
-
MaryLiz Bender (Co-founder, Cosmic Perspective)
-
Tannya Jajal (Tech Evangelist, VMWare)
​
There was also a special talk by Raghava KK, whose $94,500 NFT was sold at Burning Man Sotheby’s auction.
​
Date: 11th Feb 2022
Time: 6:00pm - 1:00am
Venue: Volte Art Projects Gallery | Al Serkal Avenue, Dubai
​
