Metalwork magician Joe Rush is an artist who’s been collecting old machines and bits of old junk and rebuilding them into the cast of a story where the machines are the actors. His latest cool creation for this year’s Glastonbury Festival features a Beetle in the shape of a toad, no less…

It seems Rush and his team at the Mutoid Waste Company have ambitious plans for Glastonbury this year, curating a performance called ‘A Kiss on the Apocalypse’ which will bring together a cast of his previous work, including as centre stage we expect, ‘A car that had to be Toad’ (get it?).

The weird monster creation features several Beetles welded together with hubcaps forming the creature’s eyes and various motorcycle petrol tanks making up the rest of the giant toad-like metal structure.

Another member of the cast, ‘Rustang Sally’ also seems to feature Beetle parts – and if our eyes aren’t deceiving us, an ultra rare early Beetle Cabriolet bootlid with the two sets of louvres.

Said Rush of his repurposed machinery creations: “I use old machines and things that are past their sell-by dates – it’s a bit like playing with big toys. When I was a child I used to break up toys and models and stick them back together in different ways, and it’s just like that again but on a bigger scale.”

Previous creations by the performance arts group, founded in West London in the early ‘80s, took their influences from the movie Mad Max and Judge Dredd comics and included ‘Kaferman’ (below), a giant human like figure with a Beetle for its chest which overlooked the Berlin wall.

Then there was the colourful Stegosaurus Beetle sculpture, created by Mutoid Waste for the Beautiful Days festival in Devon.

Having been involved in the acid party scene early on and after several raids on their King’s Cross premises, the group relocated to Germany, then to Italy and have recently been involved in a number of British events and festivals, including the closing ceremony for the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

If you’re bound for Glasto this year, keep a look out for their giant welded sculptures – and see how many Beetle parts you can spot!

Ian

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage