KINETIC RIDES WITH THE TIMES
Kinetic Grand Championship racers may not be making their way through Humboldt County’s nooks and crannies in all their artistic glory this Memorial Day weekend, but that hasn’t stopped the half-century old showing of artistic inspiration and mechanical achievement from bringing together some of the world’s most unique competitors.
While most have been sheltering in place amid the coronavirus pandemic, the kinetinauts have been sculpting in place.
Dubbed the Kinetic Sculpture in Place (KSIP), 10 daring and dutiful teams answered the call for a virtual event live-streaming challenges assumed by the brave souls Saturday, Sunday and Monday beginning at 11:31 a.m. The challenges may be viewed at kineticgrandchampionship.com/livestream.
“We wanted to create a great way for the kinetic universe to accomplish our mission,” Event Director Kati Texas said.
“Rather than human powering a Kinetic Sculpture across the landscape in pursuit of Glory, teams will move the Glory across their Kinetic Sculpture Landscape Kontraptions. The Glory in this case being a Kinetic Chicken which is sheltering in place inside a protective shell … otherwise known as a Kinetic Egg,” Texas said, quoting a paragraph from the KSIP rules.
Three challenges await the competitors: The “Deadman’s Egg Drop” asks that the egg be hoisted six feet in the air before being dropped a minimum of two feet; “Humboldt (not the) Bay Water Crossing” asks that the egg cross a small body of water and get wet in the process; “Ovo Madness ‘Mud’ Run” asks that the egg be transported six feet horizontally and six feet downward.
The egg must not be harmed at any point during the challenge and human interference at any point during a challenge run is forbidden.
Teams are judged in three categories; Art, engineering and speed.
Reed Lacy, a kinetic veteran from Corvallis, Oregon, who’s been competing in events since the early 1990s and now does so with his daughter, is a “nuts and bolts” kind of guy.
“I like tinkering and tinker-toys, I don’t do any welding for my projects … it’s all lever and pulley-based stuff,” Lacy said. “I got for speed. You get judged on three categories; art, engineering and speed, and the first two of those are subjective — speed is not.”
Lacy has won “around 20” kinetic awards and, locally, has flawlessly navigated (aced, for you diehards) the Humboldt County course on three of four occasions.
The teams were required to submit videos of their challenge runs to the judges before Friday. The live-streams over the course of the weekend incorporate the challenge runs and feature commentary from judges.
The KSIP will have two special events during the livestreams. On Saturday, in lieu of the Rutabaga Ball, KSIP will hold the ‘Remote-abaga Ball.’ On Sunday there will be a microkinetics challenge for all ages and abilities.
Texas said the challenges were designed with the hope that they could be done with common household items and common garage scrap, in an effort to minimize cost and out-ofhome trips amid the pandemic.
“We have a backyard just full of things from past kinetic events, so all we needed to do for (KSIP) was walk outside our house,” Dawn Thompson said.
Thompson, who along with partner Robert Van De Walle form Team Pineapple, submitted their three challenge runs under the theme ‘Red Herring Holocene.’
“It took us a few tries — we broke three or so eggs along the way — until we got it right,” Thompson said.
Thompson authored ‘Kinetic Kompendium: 50 Years Of Kinetic Sculpture Racing’ in 2018. What she and Van De Walle devised for the KSIP is something you won’t find anywhere in the massive text.
“We did a video to go along with our (project),” Van De Walle said. “We saw this as an opportunity to do something really outside of the box. The video is seven minutes long and it took an inordinate amount of time to make … . It tells a story just as the sculptures do.”
Champions will be announced Monday after the event ends.