
David Henry Brown, Jr. rides an earlier version of the Human Weeble Wobble. (Photo courtesy of the artist.)
This is one way around those hoverboard bans. A Brooklyn artist has created the “human weeble wobble,” a bonkers caveman version of the self-balancing scooter.
David Henry Brown, Jr. posted footage of himself trying out his new creation on the streets of Bushwick and in just two days the Instagram video has gotten over 1.5 million views. He’s planning to debut the interactive sculpture to the public at parties in the coming weeks, if he can find a space that’s big enough.
Just one thing: You’ll have to ride at your own risk. When David took this concrete-and-steel behemoth for a test run a week ago, his shoulder caught the mirror of a passing school bus. You can see it at the end of the video. What you can’t see, David said, is that “the kids in the bus were laughing their asses off.”
The artist wouldn’t reveal how he made the weeble wobble, but he did say this version was a long time coming. Influenced partly by Survival Research Labs, he made the first one when he was 27, for the “Deviant Playground” show staged at The Clemente in 1995. For years, he kept it outside of the converted Williamsburg garage that he lived in then. Five months ago, a Redditor posted footage of David riding the art piece back in 2001, and falsely claimed it was from a “Russian playground.” Nick Hugh Schmidt, a freelance art director, saw the clip and commissioned a new one.
The weeble wobble is somewhat of a departure from David’s current work, done under the persona of David Henry Nobody, Jr. Recently, he has turned himself into a human buffet and has smeared trash and food all over his face for an ongoing series of surreal self-portraits. A couple of years ago, we saw him wandering Bushwick Open Studios dressed as a toilet bowl. Some of those projects have caught flak, “especially from right-wing freaks and religious nuts and Trump assholes,” David told us. (Stalking Trump for a year probably didn’t help.)
The weeble wobble is a different story. “It’s hard to hate it,” David said. “It’s so fun.”