Shitty Space Camp explored the cosmos at Night Market 2023
This past Saturday was the Lost Horizon Night Market, a “a transient bazaar where one can encounter a variety of mysterious lounges, theaters, galleries, cafes, installations and other establishments, all situated within seemingly ordinary box trucks.”
My partner, Jane Friedhoff, and I have been talking about running an event called Shitty Space Camp for years and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Every kid wants to go to space camp, but some kids wind up at SSC, a low-budget disappointment run by people who’d rather be anywhere else. Come experience the wonders of space expressed as a bunch of shit we found in the trash. No refunds. What better place for our fly-by-night operation than the back of a U-Haul truck.
All of the photos here were taken by Jo Chiang.
With the help of our friends Mike, Midge, Chris & Dane, we spent about 7 hours in a hot parking lot turning a box truck into a dollar store galaxy.
No astronaut training is complete without a session on the gyroscope chair.
Despite our best attempts to get her to leave, the back of a truck had a Saturn Gremlin who mostly slammed energy drinks and heckled our campers.
We had an advanced voice-controlled robotic grabber arm.
The A.I. occasionally got a little surly.
We wound up with quite a line to get in despite assuring potential campers that this was a terrible--maybe even shitty--experience.
Brave astronauts-in-training could even explore the dark side of the Moon.
About 2 hours in, the police showed up and told us we could do one more group before we had to hit the road, so we crammed the truck just about as full as it could go and begged people to stand back as we spun the gyroscope chair.
That's a wrap on outer space! Our voices are completely shot but it was a magnificent time!
Big thanks to our whole crew and for the folks at Shadow Traffic for organizing!
Before I go, here are a few cellphone pictures taken by our crew during the build process!
Here we are just after finishing the build.
And here we are starting to tear down after being asked to leave by the police.
Night Market is a killer event and you should keep your eye out for it if you're in NYC. If you want to see some other trucks I've worked on for past years, you can look at them here, here, and here!
