Kristin Winters
RoboVisionary
text Kristin Winters
portrait Lunafora
When you drive through the Palm Springs movie district, you will come face to face with giant day-glow colored robots towering over palm trees and the surrounding neighborhood. Upon closer inspection, you will find that these extraordinary juggernauts are not your typical sedating public art pieces, but a singular vision of an iconoclastic individual. An image of a mad scientist comes to mind — assembling his creatures with society’s discards: there’s a television here, an alien head there, and… is that an entire station wagon? These sculptures are in fact the creations of Palm Springs’ notorious artist Kenny Irwin, creator of RoboLights, an annual holiday light display and year round art installation sprawling over four acres of his front yard. Kenny’s sculptures are as intriguing and complex as the man himself — reaching far into his imagination, bringing his creations to life. Kenny Irwin describes his sensational microwave show, his surreal dreams, thoughts on society, future plans for a theme park, and of course his infamous RoboLights installation. Allow us to introduce you in the words of the artist himself,
“Hello, my name’s Kenny Irwin, the artist that has created everything you see and experienced at RoboLights. Consider yourself transported into a wonderland.”
Let’s start off with your microwaving: How did that idea come about and when did it start happening?
I was about six years old, walked into the kitchen and something compelled me to reach up into the cabinet, get out a lightbulb, stick it in the microwave, press ‘start,’ and see what would happen. I was memorized. The lightbulb would light up, change all different colors and then explode, which was the best part.
Which is the art? The microwaving process or the end product? Both?
The process is the performance art and the end product is the physical art, so it’s a two-part process. Then it dawned on me: “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a television show about this?” This was back in 1980. So basically, I was still trying to get the microwave show off the ground, and then I started seeing that suddenly YouTube came into existence. As of 2006 I decide to implement the, “dOvetastic Microwave Theater.” It was very well received. I started getting lots of subscribers right away. I got tons of them initially. Today, I’ve created 673 microwave episodes. Just about anything you can think of, I’ve probably microwaved it.
What is the coolest reaction you’ve seen? Did anything happen that you didn’t expect?
Well, I’m the only one in human history that’s successfully microwaved a microwave — not once but twice. No one before or since I’ve done it has been able to do it. And you’re not just microwaving a microwave; you’re microwaving a microwave that’s plugged into an outlet. You’ve got to be able to shut the door with the cord still in and get it to turn on, and I’m not going to tell my secret.
So the microwave inside the other microwave, was microwaving at the same time?
That is correct.
That’s a head-trip! What happened?
It sent off some weird sonic residence, and then it started getting some weird interference like it was picking up a radio station. It did some pretty weird stuff.
That’s insane. Were there any scary moments or close calls you’ve had in your microwave experience?
I graduated from doing any experiments in the house to doing them outside pretty darn quickly. I have microwaved crazy stuff — everything from stereos, boom boxes, iPods, iPhones, game systems. I microwave them generally on release day, so that really gets people going! (laughs)
You recently microwaved an Apple Watch. How much did this model cost?
This one here retails at $400. It cost $800 for me to get it due to its rarity because of how few of them are still made and the fact that they’re backlogged into June and July. That’s generally when a video’s more prone to go viral — when it’s something hard for people to get. I take some everyday thing and then I transform into art, into something much better than it was to begin with!
Well now it’s a one of a kind!
That’s right. It’s what the Apple should have called the iWatch.
How would you describe RoboLights in your own words? How would you explain it to an alien who just landed?
The premise of RoboLights lights is an annual art and lights display started in 1986. It was triggered by what I had seen people do in the world with their resources and their blessings — really bad stuff. They had these talents and these abilities and they were doing bad things. I want to do something equally spectacular in a positive and loving way. So thus the annual art and light display was born, and it was all about, instead of cursing the darkness, I try to light it up one light at a time. Today — fast forward nearly 30 years later — it’s not just the annual light display, buts it’s part of a year round art walk that people can enjoy, comprised of over 1,000 tons of art. It’s made mostly of discards donated by neighbors that would have otherwise eventually ended up in a landfill and poisoning our bodies, but has instead ended up as art that everyone can enjoy. The annual art and light display draws in over 20,000 visitors per season, about five weeks, going from Thanksgiving weekend all the way until New Year’s. People from all over the world come to see it; it’s a legendary icon.
Can you describe the process of creating the RoboLights?
The physical creation of the art is all created by me — no one can make the art but me. The results that you see out there are a literal psychical manifestations from what I see in my mind in all in its exact details and specifications. I can see it three-dimensionality in my mind before it’s ever created, without any blueprints or anything.
Is there a specific material or object you like to work with?
Anything you’ve acquired — car parts, computers, wires — that you’ve been inspired by?
Actually, in my work there is absolutely zero inspiration.There is no external inspiration feeding into my work. Everything is feeding out; it’s coming from out of me, from within me. It comes to me in the form of dreams and ideas, and they’re all intertwined with the energy that propels me to do my art. Yes, so there is nothing out there that is externally inspired at all- but I hope that it will inspire many others though. (laughs)
I imagine you get these materials donated from neighbors and others, and then use whatever means necessary to create your work. Is that how it is?
You hit the nail on the head.
Within RoboLights you use icons from every holiday and religion. In addition to Christmas, there’s Islamic imagery, as well as Santa Claus replaced with aliens and things like that. What does the audience think of all this symbolism mixed together?
It sort of knocks them outta the box and gets them laughing and thinking more lightly about life not being so serious. The only thing I make a mockery of in my art is weapons, because they are so ridiculous. Why do we need guns? Why do we need bombs? So I make them look extra goofy because they are really stupid and goofy!
Like having the Easter Bunny operating them?
The Mongolian Easter Bunny! What could be a perfect match other than chocolate and peanut butter?
(laughs) Let’s talk about your recent exhibit, “The Mongolian Easter Bunny,” at Gallery 446. Would you tell us the story behind the war between the Mongolian Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?
Everyone knows that there’s Santa Claus and he seems to dominate the holiday realm. On the other side of the year you have the Easter Bunny. They both give gifts: one gives gifts in square boxes, the other one gives gifts in eggs. They’re both vying for supremacy of the gift-giving realm. But of course, Santa Claus is the ultimate gift giver, and then you have the Easter Bunny — he wouldn’t mind dethroning Santa Claus and taking over the gift-giving kingdom. Thus, The Mongolian Easter Bunny was born.
What is the Mongolian Easter Bunny’s army consisted of and what are his specialized weapons? Whatever you found in the bin that day or what? (laughs)
He has a bazooka that shoots eggs and he’s got an answer to Santa’s sleigh — its called the “Mongolian Easter Bunny’s Mobile Throne.” He has a synthesized cross between reindeer and cute little bunnies that grew antlers. He has nine of those, like Santa has nine reindeer.
It’s a little bit of the, “Nightmare Before Christmas,” theme going on, except it’s Easter taking over Christmas…
That’s right. There’s 15 tons of total art weight in there. It took me four months to build — about 12,000 man hours put in of my own time. It was a major job; it involved cranes and big trucks. It was built to be a permanent art installation, that was the intentional design anyway. Unfortunately [the property of the building] got caught in the middle of something between the landowners and the tenants. So my dad and I are still trying to figure out a way to resolve that and save my art.
Do you think showing in galleries and museums has established you as a professional artist as opposed to an outsider artist?
Well, my ultimate goal has always been to get my work out in the world as much as possible; to produce as much good quality work as possible and get it out into the world by whatever space becomes available whether it’s museums or galleries. But I have other ambitions too that parallel that. I want to build a big amusement park here off the I-10 called “RoboWorld.”
Really? Wow!
This amusement park that I have in my mind is all about experiencing a visionary experience on a ride. You’re not just going on a roller coaster, you’re going on a roller coaster into another world. It is green in all its aspects: the brunt of it will be built out of recycled materials and all of the contributions the town would put into it — [trash] and a lot of the recycling just gets thrown out into the landfill anyways, we got this big growing mountain in the valley where the trash is just being buried, which is stupid! I can take that trash and I can build a grand amusement park out of it.
Coming back to holiday themes, what other holiday mash-ups do you have in mind? Where does Valloween come into the narrative?
Valloween is basically what happens when Cupid takes over Halloween and all the ghosts and goblins and all the other gobbledygook — it becomes a love of horror, I guess you could say. When you enter Valloween there would be a large heart-shaped rotating casket in the middle with Cupid as a zombie of course. There will be chocolate hearts, but not like regular chocolate hearts — they will be chocolate heart hearts.
What are your thoughts on life on other planets?
I 100% believe that there is not just life on other planets, but that there’s intelligent life in this universe. It’s not only just what I believe, but it’s also even revealed in religious texts. Even in my own religion it’s revealed, the creator is the lord of the worlds — not just one world but plural worlds. There was a poll taken recently on which religions believe in life on other planets to the greatest degree, and actually Islam took number one in the rankings. More Muslims believe in alien life than other groups. I thought that was interesting because I didn’t even know that myself, but it is revealed. There’s hints all over in the Koran. So ever since I was born, I always looked up at the stars and wondered, who’s looking back at us?
What would you like to see in the future, not only for your art, but events happening all over the world?
I would hope that my work boldly and positively inspires others to utilize their talents and abilities, collectively as a human civilization. To explore and colonize space not just for expanding our horizons, but also for saving the entire human civilization so that it doesn’t blink out in a wink of an eye because we never mastered space travel and therefore we out grew our cradle, which is our earth. I definitely want to see a bright future for humanity. I want to see a future of humanity doing good deeds, advancing in all ways — morally, ethically, religiously, in every way. That would be a beautiful thing.
WEB: KENNYIRWINARTIST.COM
LINKS: ROBOCHRISTMAS.COM
VIDEO: MICROWAVESHOW.COM