[ anti-wishing well ]
Take all the sourness, belligerence, and straight-up loss that emerged out of 2020 and use it all as emotional fuel for an invention. The contraption manifested would exude enough energy to blow up the planet a thousand times over. The thing is, mechanical engineer Mike Murray did build a machine like this, but his ode to the most frustrating time in our modern lived history isn’t angry at all, in fact, it’s joyful.
If there was ever a time to use the term “like a phoenix rising from the ashes” it is now. The Phoenix, Arizona artist created “Dumpster Fire 2020” as joke, but also as a way to metaphorically torch the year. It’s the kind of laughing-through-the-tears humor that the year 2020 made everyone so accustomed to feeling. “I’ve been trying to put a positive spin on it,” Mike says. “I had my teenage daughters paint the dumpster itself. I brought them into the shop one weekend and we all dug into it.” The front of the dumpster has cartoony blue skies, green rolling hills, pink flowers, a rainbow leading to a pot of gold, and a tiny innocent white rabbit looking optimistically toward the horizon. Mike examines, “I do not take my art seriously at all. It is definitely designed to get a laugh.”
The juxtaposition of all this cuteness to the enlarged flaming sun and “2020” lit in creepy carnival lights gives it a defunct amusement park quality. “Here’s the thing,” Mike adds. “I want this to be more of a happy, colorful representation of 2020 so I let them do whatever they wanted to do. I wanted them to make it cute and almost carnival-like since we were putting the marquee on it. It’s a happy dumpster fire.” This creative optimism is what led Mike down the path to building it in the first place.
Every idea starts with a spark and then, when nurtured, builds and grows until it flares up into something exciting. “I was checking out of an online store,” Mike says about the a-ha moment, where he came up with the idea to build this fully realized version of the most overused expression of 2020. “I was going to buy a T-shirt that had ‘Dumpster Fire 2020’ on it. I am about to click approve and I thought, rather than spending $20 on this T-shirt, how about I spend probably a lot more money building this because this is in my wheelhouse.” That week, Mike began researching what it would take to build what the gears in his brain started putting together. He started looking for parts to build his burning wonder. “It was the first piece that I’ve worked on with fire of this kind,” marking his initiation into pyro territory on his engineering journey. “Oh, and I am still getting emails from that online store telling me that I forgot to check out.”
Wait. What sort of madman goes from buying a T-shirt to building a flame thrower? “My Burning Man name is Tinker,” he says. Ah, Burning Man. It was cancelled, like everything else. But this bit of information finally allows the transition of how he jumped from online shopping to building a trash terminator to make a little more sense. “It accurately describes me, because I actively tinker with things until it works. Mostly, I am looking for problems to solve.” He knew he couldn’t fix the world, but maybe he could tinker with something that will make people laugh — and maybe, a few beats after the joke wears off, to think a little. Or at least it’s an excuse for Burning Man light.
The first step in building an experiential art piece that conveys the essence of 2020 is finding a great dumpster. “I found a used one that said ‘deposit newspaper here’ on it,” Mike laughs. The perfect dumpster for this project sent from the universe: check. “It was a recycling dumpster for newspapers so one of the first things I did was spray paint ‘paper’ out with a big X so it just said ‘deposit news here,” also marking Mike’s anarchist “fuck you” to the media from being stuck at home day in and out, forced to hear pessimistic headlines. “Then I had to put all the guts of this thing inside, so I started welding a door on the back that acts as an access panel so I can clean out the inside and install all the plumbing and electronics. It has a pretty complicated plumbing system inside as well as an electrical system because the flame effect is triggered using a wireless remote control as well as shut down.” That’s right, it flames at his command, allowing Mike the ability to illuminate the darkness whenever he wants.
“Dumpster Fire 2020” shines a spotlight on all the things we want to shed from the year. “For me personally, without going too deep into it, there are some things that I threw in the dumpster fire — things that I think I can do without,” Mike reveals, feeling like the dumpster gave him an outlet to let some things go and get more control over his life.
It’s not just physical things. As we grow through life we shed layers that are not useful anymore. Preconceptions, thoughts, views. Those, too, need to be burned if they are outdated. It’s fine to remember them in our mind, but they hold no place in our daily lives. “Half of our business dried up for the year,” Mike says about Spectacle, the name of the business he built from the ground up with his brother. They and a team of whiz kids fabricate those big, beautiful, lit up, technical centerpieces at sporting events, built for film marketing stunts, or seen at music and arts festivals. They also create epic installations at Burning Man. It’s a group of people doing what they love. Because of the pandemic, most of their work “was postponed or just cancelled outright,” Mike says. “It’s been a financial adjustment. We’ve fared better than some people like bar owners or those where 100% of their revenue comes from events. ‘Dumpster Fire 2020’ was meant to help bring a smile, because we all needed it.”
From an ugly but necessary building utility — a nasty trash can — one lonely dumpster transformed into a symbol that everyone could warm up to. Phoenix began an art show called Roadside Attraction that allowed artists to display their art and allow the community to view via a self-guided driving tour. “Roadside Attraction started asking people to bring art outside and let people drive by and tour it,” Mike says about how “Dumpster Fire 2020” rolled onto the scene, flames blazing. “I was not trying to make a political statement with my piece, but I think it resonated well with people on both sides of the aisle. I find myself in the center politically, so I was double frustrated. I was happy to let people interpret how they wanted to. The compliment I get most is, ‘nailed it, summed it up perfectly.’”
“I had the dumpster activated in our arts district last Saturday on the main drag and about 300 people stopped to take pictures, selfies, or just to talk to me, it was really encouraging.” As cathartic as it was for Mike to make Dumpster Fire 2020, he can’t wait to get back to work. “If this vaccine is effective, I can’t wait to get back to work on actual events.”
When the world looks back at 2020, a lot of things will come to mind. Of all the negativity summoned in the hell-fire of a year, Mike hopes there is room for hope and optimism or at least a hearty laugh. “I have been calling it the anti-wishing well of 2020. Let’s just shed some stuff for 2020 and throw it in a dumpster.” It’s a beautiful reminder that the things we throw into the fire today fuel our tomorrow. [ end ]