KAOS Kamp Car Kackle

You’re walking down NE 46th Street around Sunnyside and checking out the cars. There’s a Honda Fit, there’s a Subaru Outback, maybe a Ford Explorer and there’s a…WTF?

Is it a car? A truck? A monster?

No, it’s just Kackle, the product of Kaos Camp.

This is going to take a little explaining.

Burning Man is a massive arts / alternative lifestyle festival that goes on every year in the Nevada desert the week leading up through Labor Day weekend. About 45,000 people descend on desolate plot of lifeless, inhospitable, dusty alkaline desert (“the playa”), where they build a temporary city. While some people camp individually, most people organize into “camps”, groups of people who throw in together to share resources and labor and jointly work on some sort of art project. The art projects range from giant dance clubs to mazes to “chill spaces” to Barbie-themed holocaust scenes to enormous Rubik’s cubes to…well, the list is endless. If you want to see some examples, visit the Burning Man web site or any number of other photo sites on the net.

In particular, though, one type of art you see quite a bit of is the “art car”. These can be gigantic things built around multiple Greyhound-size busses or smaller affairs built around electric scooters, but the idea is that they very rarely look anything like a car. Google “Burning Man Art Car” for a taste of what it’s all about.

Which brings us to Kackle. That bizarre looking car you see on the streets of Wallingford is the product of Kaos Camp and was created for Burning Man 2010 by a group of local burners (as participants are known). Neil Crocodile confirms “It was a pile of fun to cruise around on that this this year at the burn, lotsa rocking metal, as you might imagine.”

Here’s a shot of Kackle in her native habitat, courtesy of Brian Mars.