The Emergence
Project
Twilight on the open playa. A tall wooden figure with a glowing television for half its face sits on a stacked cabinet while two people crouch to look into a lit drawer.

Try the piece on this page

I. Pull open the nine drawers to peek inside & flip the channel II. Type a spell on the old TV & watch it dissolve into the dark

Next, for Black Rock City 2028

The Familiar

A keeper, a cabinet, and the stories in its drawers.

A new piece by The Emergence Project

Read the story

Concept render

The idea

We are part earth, part machine, and all the way human. This is a sculpture about living with that.

  • 14fttall, made of reclaimed wood
  • 1old television, for half a face
  • 9drawers you are allowed to open

Two ideas walked
into a workshop.

Pencil sketch in a notebook: a slender slatted wooden man with a television for half his face and roots growing up one leg. Concept sketch

One of us brought a figure

A slender totem of a man, half timber, half signal, with an old television for half of its face.

Pencil sketch on kraft paper: a tall, oddly stacked cabinet of dressers, doors and small drawers, one drawer pulled open. Concept sketch

The other brought a cabinet

An oddly stacked dresser with a tiny lit world inside every single drawer.

The figure needed somewhere to sit.
The cabinet needed someone to keep it.

Graphite and chalk sketch on kraft paper of the figure seated on the cabinet, roots wrapping down one side, a tiny person standing beside it for scale.
Concept sketch Both ideas, together.

Meet

The Familiar.

In old stories a familiar is the spirit that keeps a witch company. Ours keeps us company: fourteen feet of reclaimed wood, built in thirds of earth, human, and machine.

Close up of the head: the left half a carved wooden face with closed eyes, the right half an old television whose green screen shows a line of code: while awake, watch sky.
Concept render

Half carved.
Half signl.

On the left, a redwood face with its eyes closed. On the right, a 1970s television shell with a modern display behind its curved glass.

while (awake) { watch(sky); }

Built in thirds.

  1. Gnarled salvaged branches wrapping down the side of the cabinet and spreading into roots on the cracked playa.

    IEarth

    Salvaged branches bolted around the left leg, reaching down into the playa.

  2. A carved wooden hand hanging over the edge of the cabinet, gouge marks on every finger.

    IIHuman

    A cedar hand, carved by hand, resting flat on the cabinet top.

  3. The machine arm up close: wooden gears and dowels wound with copper wire, ending in a carved hand.

    IIIMachine

    A forearm of birch gears and dowel axles, wrapped in copper wire.

The cabinet of small hours.

Golden hour. Two people lean in to look into two glowing open drawers at the base of the tall wooden cabinet.
Concept render Golden hour, drawers open.

Four feet wide and seven feet tall, like three dressers and an armoire piled up by a giant. A few doors that are only doors, and one tiny one that says do not open. Nine drawers open.

The drawers

Pull a drawer.
Read a chapter.

Seven of the drawers hold a tiny lit world, one chapter each of the stories that got us here. A magnet switch inside tells the Familiar which one you opened, and its face changes channel.

The drawers are the remote

  1. 01Open a drawer
  2. 02A magnet switch closes
  3. 03The Pi picks the chapter
  4. 04The face changes channel

No cameras. No microphones. No network.
A Raspberry Pi, nine switches, a typewriter, and one distance sensor.

while (awake) { watch(sky); }

Nothing is recorded. Nothing is sent.

The typewriter drawer

Type a spell.
Watch it go.

Whatever you type appears on the face, one phosphor letter at a time, hangs there for a breath, then dissolves.

A word said into the dark, and let go.

Channel guide

Five channels. No remote control, except this one.

  3. CH 3 Chapters Each drawer has its own slow loop of light.

From the Familiar’s diary

while (awake) {
  watch(sky);
  count(stars);
  // lost count at 4,000
  forget(nothing);
}

if (someone.is_here) {
  breathe(slower);
}
Written by hand, not generated.
Night under the Milky Way. The figure glows like a lantern, warm light leaking from every slat and open drawer, as a small group stands close and bikes trail light across deep playa.

After dark
it becomes a lantern.

Warm light leaks between every slat. The drawers glow. The face is the last thing you see on the way to deep playa.

Concept render

Why it feels
like a spell.

  • Cabinets of wonder

    The first museums were drawers full of marvels. Ours is too.

  • Spells are words

    A typewriter, a glowing word, a release. Cast it, then let it go.

  • The inner child

    A fourteen foot friend who sits on the furniture and will not come down.

A workshop bench by a window: a half carved wooden face among wood shavings and gouges, a gutted television, a mug of coffee and a figure sketch pinned to the wall.
Concept render Redwood, three gouges, one gutted television.

Why we are building it

A portrait of being three things at once.

An animal that wants sun, a person who wants to be seen, and a node in a network that never stops asking.

It isn’t a warning about screens, and it isn’t selling anything. It keeps the stories that got us here, the way a grandmother’s dresser keeps photographs.

I build software with AI for a living and split firewood to stay sane. Most days I feel like three things at once. … You type a wish, a confession, a name, and it glows on an old television for a few seconds and then it is gone. No cloud, no log, no feed. We hope people leave a little more aware of the drawers they carry, and a little kinder to the machine half of themselves.

NickNick Franchi, lead artist

How it goes together

Built in modules.
Bolted together on playa.

Exploded pencil drawing showing the figure’s head, torso segments, arms and legs separated from the three cabinet modules.
Exploded view. Fits a 16 foot box truck.
Head
Redwood half, gutted 1970s TV shell, 19 inch display.
Torso
Three slatted segments on a 2 inch steel tube core.
Arms
Gear lattice and carved hand. Both fixed, both bolted.
Legs
Root wrap and slat leg, bolted to the cabinet frame.
Cabinet
Three plywood modules, salvaged fronts, slides with stops.
Brain
A Raspberry Pi, nine switches, a typewriter, one sensor.
Front elevation drawing of the seated figure and cabinet beside a standing person for scale.
Front elevation. Drawers run from knee height to just over your head.
  • 14 ftto the top of the head
  • 7 × 5 ftfootprint with the root leg
  • 4 × 3 × 7 ftthe cabinet, w × d × h
  • 2,600 lbmost of it low in the cabinet

Wind, dust, and power.

Wind

90 mph

Steel core, bolted modules, four earth anchors, and a stamped engineering review.

Dust

IP54

Gasketed electronics, plexiglass over the display and the dioramas, serviceable from a back door.

Power

110 W

600 W of solar on the cabinet roof and a 5 kWh battery. At night it sips about 110 W. No generator, no noise, no fire.

From a letter
to the playa.

  1. We are here

    Sketches and a letter of intent

  2. Full proposal

  3. Steel and cabinet carcasses

  4. Carving, dioramas, software

  5. Full assembly and a wind test

  6. Pack the truck and drive

  7. On-playa build

  8. Black Rock City 2028

Who is building it

Three friends, a workshop,
and a lot of drawers.

  • Nick, in black and white, behind a camera under a wide straw hat.

    Lead artist

    Nick Franchi

    Designer, woodworker, software guy. Lives in Santa Cruz, California. Dad of three, husband of one. Black Rock City since 2013. Known on playa as “Prototype”.

  • Justin in a red and white striped jacket and a top hat with goggles.

    Lead artist

    Justin Nistler

    Builds the big pieces, and the plans for them. Known on playa as “Ratchet”.

  • Steph smiling, sunglasses pushed up, a white scarf and big hoop earrings.

    Lead project manager

    Steph Nistler

    Keeps the whole thing on schedule, and on the truck. Known on playa as “Penetrator”.

And the crew: a welder, an electrician, and four friends who have said yes before.

Meet everyone
The finished Love Tram glowing on the playa at dusk in Black Rock City, with twelve smiling crew and friends gathered in front of its stained-glass heart doors. On the playa, 2025

Before this

Completed · Black Rock City 2025

A wooden gondola set down in the desert, built for love in all its forms.

Ride it again

And before that, Dragonfly, forty feet of steel from 2022 that now lives at Fly Ranch.

Support the build

Help us build it.

The Familiar is made of other people’s things and other people’s Saturdays. Tax-deductible donations and our workshop drop-off list will open here soon.

Donate Coming soon!
Workshop wish list
  • Old dresser drawers and drawer fronts with character
  • A 1940s typewriter that still types
  • A 1970s wood-grain television, guts optional
  • Reclaimed redwood and cedar
  • Branches and driftwood with good bends
  • Brass knobs, any size, any age
  • Welders, carvers, and electricians
  • People who are good at very small things

Bring your capacity for awe.

We will bring the typewriter.