After a one year hiatus, the Percolator Top Cosmic Theatre is making its fourth trip to the playa with Ganesh Camp.  This year it will feature the new, interactive and on-theme Chronosphere Robotica.  It will run sunset to sunrise, festival opening to close.

The Cosmic Theatre is a 4-ft x 3-ft eye-level screen, comprised of 192 old fashioned percolator tops illuminated by high tech networked color LED’s.  It will be at the corner curbside, and features hours of scenes from well-known movies. The Cosmic Theatre pulsates. It sparkles. Pixels blossom outward and wink inwards. Light percolates in three dimensions and classic movie scenes are transformed into trippy pop art. 

Each percolator top contains a starburst lens that acts as a cat’s eye, so all 192 percolator tops “follow” each participant’s every move. Sway side-to-side and the Cosmic Theatre sways with you. The percolator tops are old school, glassy smooth and delightful to the touch. Soundtrack volume is high fidelity but low volume, creating an intimate experience.

The Robotica is an interactive robot that obeys a participant’s every command and helps the participant unlock the riddle and enigma that is the Cosmic Theatre.  The Chronosphere Robotica is in fact a powerful time travel robot, employing flux capacitor technology to take participants into the past or future.  Past and future Cosmic Theatre scenes, that is.  Pressing the industrial mushroom button for The Past replays whatever scene is playing.  Of course, first you make the jump.  Percolator tops race outward, faster and faster, with an audible whoosh, and then you arrive and the scene plays.

Participants can employ the Flux Lens to focus on one of the three fates:  Adventurism & War, Love & Lust, or Comedy & Farce.  Pressing the button for one of the three fates causes that fate’s percolator tops to glow and twinkle.  Pressing a fate's button puts the focus on that fate; pressing it again removes the focus.  Selecting one fate cancels any other. 

For example, if a participant selects Adventurism & War and then The Future, they will make the jump and then a scene will play, perhaps from Apocalypse Now. 

Participants will learn that while they can use the Flux Lens to change the future, they can not change the past.  (Actually it is possible, but it's risky.)

Selecting The Past cancels any fate, makes the jump and replays the current scene.  With another press and jump, the scene before, and then the scene before that, marching back in time scene-by-scene.

Employing the Flux Overdrive is risky.  The Flux Capacitor becomes over-bright and the control panel vibrates discernibly.  However, in combination with the Flux Lens, participants can now view special cosmic scenes.  They may even be able to change the past.

The Robotica's ability to constantly learn and improve itself, coupled with its ability to time travel, provides the Chronosphere Robitica with super-intelligence and power.  The Robotica is benign but could crush the human race if it desired to.  As a safeguard, participants are provided with a Robotica Reboot button.  This deactivates the Robotica and plays a special startup test pattern, followed by the scene "Deactivating HAL" from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When participants are not interacting with the Cosmic Theatre, the Chronosphere Robotica uses its futuristic AI to continue the show on its own.

Besides being trippy, interactive and fun, the Cosmic Theatre serves as a nighttime corner landmark.  Late in the festival, with street signs gone and the city deconstructing and becoming dark, the Cosmic Theatre plays on.