Critics say Canberra is boring, ordered and staid.
Yep, so tell all of them to turn up and have a good gander at the chaos, craziness and downright fun about to be unleashed on our streets on Saturday, October 22.
Canberra is about to experience its first Kinetic Sculpture Race - including a parade from Braddon to Lake Burley Griffin - in scenes that are probably going to make us feel like it's circa-1987-peak-Birdman-Rally.
Human-powered, amphibious, all-terrain creations will be parading from Haig Park in Braddon, down Londsdale Street, into the heart of the city, down Bunda Street, to Glebe Park and then to Queen Elizabeth II Island (aka Aspen Island) for the staging of the race, which will include the crazy machines even trying to get across sand and water.
All of them will be over-the-top creations, with names such as Slugterra and Electric Shadow (on-board movies included).
It's the culmination of more than a year of planning by Canberra artists Travis Bullock and Constance Titterton, now famous for their own kinetic, pedal-powered sculptures, Shelly the Snail and Cosmo the Cockatoo.
The race planning has had some stops and starts due to COVID but is now going to be a reality, with the support of the City Renewal Authority and backing of the ACT government and National Capital Authority.
"I feel really excited, I'm stoked that it's happening," Constance said.
"It's very exciting that people are building different sculptures. We have a couple of interstate teams as well as Canberra teams."
Travis, who is originally from the United States, said the inspiration was from a long-running Californian kinetic sculpture race which he had competed in throughout his school years. There has been a massive kinetic sculpture scene there for more than 50 years.
The race is bringing back some of the fun and spectacle of Canberra's long-gone, much-missed Birdman Rally, which ran from 1985 to 1992, attracting up to 100,000 people to the shores of Lake Burley Griffin to watch daredevils try to fly their home-made aircraft over the water, in an attempt to cover the longest distance.
While also injecting some just-plain-silly whimsy into the national capital.
"Lots of people have said that. The second we mention our race, people say, 'Oh, there was this other thing, Birdman, which happened in Canberra', so hopefully we can bring back some of that creative, can-do, make-your-own machine spirit that Birdman was."
On the day, October 22, from 10am to noon there will be a display of the sculptures in Haig Park, Braddon and judging of "art, engineering and pageantry".
The sculptures will parade to Glebe Park where there will be an engineering challenge. The parade will continue to Queen Elizabeth II Island for the race at 3pm, traversing the sand "which sounds really easy but is actually really tricky", Constance said.
"Then they'll do a big loop on the water and hopefully float and propel themselves," she said.
Constance said there was a community of people in Canberra who created "freak bikes" from bits and bobs and the kinetic sculptures were an extension of that.
"They were really enthusiastic about starting up a kinetic sculpture race in Canberra because they had heard of it overseas," Constance said.
"There actually used to be one of these races in Australia, it was in Perth and it ran in the early 2000s and people loved it. But it stopped about 15 years ago and there hasn't been kinetic sculpture race ... since.
"So it's exciting to bring it back to Australia, start it up in Canberra. Hopefully, this will be the first one of many."
Canberran graphic designer Nic Welbourne will be entering the race with his kinetic sculpture Slugterra, a converted three-wheel bike with "floating paddlewheel which will take me across mud, water, any terrain really".
"I thought it was an historic opportunity because it's the inaugural race in Canberra and it's based on something that has this long history in the States," Nic said.
"I thought, 'Get in year one and try to win it'.
- Canberra's first Kinetic Sculpture Race will be held on Saturday, October 22. Displays and judging from 10am to noon in Haig Park, Braddon. The human-powered machines will then parade to the city and Glebe Park. They will leave Glebe Park at 2pm for Queen Elizabeth II Island (aka Aspen Island) on Lake Burley Griffin for the race at 3pm.
