how can i help?

explore the articles referenced in the 2026 POrtalburn art piece, "how can i help?," created by Jolly Rancher, Animal Planet, and Teabag. together, we are known as the Creatures of Camp Creature.for articles behind a paywall, try using a paywall remover site

Environmental Impact

Emissions & Pollution

Energy usage

Local impact

Water usage

Danger & harm to users

AI psychosis & mental health concerns

Cognitive atrophy

Harm through disinformation

Public health concerns

Human exploitation, labor, & slavery

Impact on artists

Misinformation, Disinformation, & Accuracy

AI porn & sexual abuse

Unauthorized theft of human works

A response to one of the most common counter-arguments to AI's negative environmental impact…

(blank) uses more water/energy/resources than AI, so why aren't you talking about that?

we can and should care about multiple issues at once. for example, those who care about the environment should be more intentional about ALL forms of consumption that we engage in and how we can lessen our impact. this can include decreasing or stopping AI usage, as well as switching your energy provider to renewable energy, eating less meat, prioritizing secondhand and resource sharing over buying new, generally consuming less, flying less, shopping local and in-season, etc. all of these actions add up - and we SHOULD be thinking about the holistic impact of our activities.arguing that we should be talking about more important things than AI's environmental impact is an example of the fallacy of relative privation, which here means arguing that because other things have a bigger impact on the environment, the impacts of AI are unimportant. the reality is, a lot of things are important, including this.

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how can i help?

view "how can i help?" as it was presented at POrtalburn 2026 from Jul 23-26 in Almond, NY. "how can I help?" was created by Jolly Rancher, Animal Planet, and Teabag, aka the Creatures of Camp Creature.

how can i help?

explore the process behind, "how can i help?," created by created by Jolly Rancher, Animal Planet, and Teabag, aka the Creatures of Camp Creature.

summary
“how can I help” uses collage to cover a regular chair*, desk, and computer monitor in hand-written headlines and relevant articles about progressing tech and its influence and impact on people and the world. The end product is an art desk with a computer and chair, where you can sit and imagine it is your office, your chair, your computer, and your choice. The headlines tell a story, strewn across the desk, computer, and chair, and ultimately encourage intentional engagement, deep thought, and possibly existential spiraling, resting on the final (or opening) question, asked both by the machine and the viewer: how can i help?*the art piece appeared at pOrtalburn 2026 without the chair and keyboard, as we forgot them at home!the headlines
this project began with research into real articles and headlines illustrating the state of AI technology today and in the recent past. the headlines were then traced by hand. the purpose of creating the headlines by hand was to make a statement about the artistic process that AI removes—that art is about the journey and about the humanness throughout, not necessarily the end product. the process is obviously painstaking, but produces a completely unique and distinctly human visual at the end.why bring to a burn?
we believe this art piece embraces multiple principles of burning man, including:
- radical self-expression: the piece shows our authentic and heartfelt feelings about this particular issue and how it affects us and the people around us, even though it will not be agreed with by anyone. We choose to radically express our thoughts and welcome folks to approach these thoughts with curiosity, openness, and a critical eye.
- civil responsibility and communal effort: the piece invites viewers to examine how their actions impact those around them and their responsibility ot their community and other people, as well as inviting communal effort in finding solutions and paths forward in this issue in a way that closely involves community members to work together to affect positive change
- leave no trace: the piece shows the ways that engagement with certain technology leaves distinct traces on multiple sectors, including the local and global communities, and encourages a view of leaving no trace in a broad sense as it relates to daily life and action