Chayne Hultgren (born 13 April 1978), known professionally as the Space Cowboy, is a multi award winning Australian visual artist and performer. He is recognised for his 56x Guinness World Records as an extreme performance artist and sideshow, street, and freak show performer,[1][2][3][4] as well as his work as a contemporary artist incorporating augmented reality (AR) into his pieces.[5]
Street performing, theatre shows and world records
Hultgren’s repertoire has included a range of extreme and sideshow performances. His signature acts feature catching flaming arrows blindfolded after they are fired from a bow or crossbow, juggling running chainsaws while riding a 3 m (10 ft) unicycle, and sword swallowing. He has also incorporated elements of mentalism and illusion, such as mind reading, spoon bending, and levitation. Other performances have involved traditional sideshow stunts including the human blockhead and suspension from flesh hooks. In one theatre piece, he swallowed a 60 cm (24 in) illuminated 2,000-volt neon tube fitted with a microphone, allowing his heartbeat to be amplified while the light glowed through his torso.
He has also toured his "Mutant Barnyard".[6] His traveling tent show displays his collection of historical freak show items including some of the world's most rare and unusual oddities. These include his earliest item, Ditto, the double-bodied duckling, a two-headed cow named Daisy and Maisy, an albino kangaroo, extreme body modification skulls from Peru, shrunken heads from Ecuador and 18th-century paintings of bearded women and a young child with lobster hands. He regards this as a traveling "Museum of Mutations and Oddities". One of his latest acquisitions is what is claimed to be the genuine preserved head of Horace Ridler (a professional tattooed freak and sideshow performer better known as The Great Omi or The Zebra Man, who died in 1969). His collection is said to be insured by Lloyds Bank for 7 million dollars.
Since 2021, Hultgren has worked as a contemporary artist, painting canvases often featuring anthropomorphic subjects. Many of his works include AR elements that are brought to life through the use of a smartphone.[7] The opening of his first exhibition in his own Byron Bay gallery included a live performance from Hultgren, combining painting and a live Tesla coil.[8] He has since established himself as a multi-award-winning artist and, according to art fair directors, quickly became one of the top sellers at major art fairs in both Australia and New Zealand.[9] His transition from circus performance to painting has also been profiled in Australian media.[10]
Achievements
Hultgren is 'Australia's most prolific record breaker' and as of July2016[update] he held 44 official Guinness World Records for his unusual skills. His records include 'Most chainsaw juggling catches on a unicycle', 'Most weight dragged with hooks in the eye sockets', 'Most targets hit with throwing knives in one minute', 'Most swords swallowed underwater', and 'Most blowtorches extinguished with the tongue in one minute (temperature of flames reached 1995°C / 3623°F)'. His achievement of swallowing 17 swords in 2009 was voted by Guinness World Records as one of the top 100 records of all time. Since then he has broken this record many times, and his current record is 27 swords swallowed at the same time. He is featured in many 'Guinness World Record' and 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not' books and TV shows. Bronze life cast statues of Hultgren swallowing swords are exhibited in the Ripley's Museums.
His first record broken was most swords swallowed (17 at once),[11] then broke that record again, this time scoring 27 swords at the Irish Street Performance Festival (although this 27 swords record is unofficial) and on 8 February 2010 the BBC recorded that he broke this official world record by swallowing 18 swords. He also broke the longest distance pulling 411kg by fishhooks in his eye sockets. He also holds the record for heaviest weight lifted while swallowing a sword. Other records include 'Fastest arrow caught blindfolded', 'Most chainsaw juggling catches on a unicycle', 'Most motorbikes driven over the body while laying on a bed of nails', and 'Most flowers whip-cracked from the mouth in a minute.'
Hultgren holds many "world firsts" such as first double sword swallow, first sword swallow underwater, and his signature trick "The Black and Decker Digestion Wrecker", a power drill with sword attachment which he swallows. He is the first person to publicly swallow a sword underwater in a tank of live sharks. He was also reported to be the youngest working sword-swallower in Australia, when he was 22 years old.[11]
Inserting fish hooks with attached weights into his eyelids
Hultgren is well known for his tattoos, which include large angel wings on his back. People also remember him for his 11 piercings, which include nipple piercings, cartilage piercings, a flesh tunnel in his left ear and navel piercing. He also has a subdermal implant in his chest which he acquired at Tusk tattoo shop in London. It was implanted by "Samppa Von Cyborg", a body-modification aficionado.
Due to an internal deformation medically known as congenital division of the stomach, the lower half of his stomach has been replicated and sits lower than the average human stomach, allowing him to swallow longer swords. He can swallow the entire length of a 72cm sword blade.[11]
Media coverage
Swallowing a sword attached to a metal bar with weights suspended from it. Glastonbury Festival 2009
In June 2008 Hultgren was featured on the cover of national newspapers in the UK[12] and Ireland,[13] and on the BBC website when he broke a world record in Dublin by swallowing 27 swords decorated with the flags of all the countries in the European Union, on the day of the EU referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
In 2008, The Times newspaper stated that the "Two-time world champion, quadruple Guinness World Record-holder, built out of muscle, tattoo ink and piercings, the Space Cowboy gathers crowds that nobody else in Edinburgh can muster without a seat on Mock the Week."[14]
In 2009 Hultgren appeared on the Australian television show Australia's Got Talent. His other TV appearances include Ripley's Believe It or Not! (USA), Don't Try This at Home (UK), The Sideshow (Australia), "Guinness O Mundo dos Recordes"[15] (Spain) and "Lo show dei record" (Italian version of the Guinness World Records show).[16][17] He later appeared in the US TV show The World's Best, but was eliminated in the first round.[18] However, due to a shortage, he was brought back as a wild card, and once again was eliminated in the battle round.
In August 2011, he was arrested while performing on the streets in New York City for "brandishing a sword in public". He was later released without charge after having his props confiscated.[22]
Personal life
Hultgren lives in Byron Bay, Australia with his partner, Zoe Wild (A.K.A: Zoe L'amore).[citation needed] They have one daughter, Scarlett Showbiz Wild, born on 4 June 2013.[citation needed]
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