Want to get rid of that spare jet engine? Want to risk your skin? This Saturday night, you can do both to the beat of jungle dance music. The Seemen are coming to town.

Opening for a similar local act, the New Havoc Amateurs, the Seemen are a San Francisco-based performance art group that lets volunteers play with its fiery robotic creations. The combined groups' show is called: "And They Feared for Their Lives."

The Seemen will be bringing several of its famous kinetic sculptures, which the audience and performers use together to create a primal, industrial story. The sculptures are largely made of cast-off objects and machine parts, and they are indeed looking for a jet engine to use in their work.

Among these sculptures is the "Fire Shower," a booth roughly the size of a show- er stall. One brave person will stand within as flames rise up to whirl around him.

Another will stand in the "Shark Cage" as a huge robotic angel throws itself against the bars. As stated on their Web site (seemen.org), the acts are meant to "allow you to look death in the eye," because "it is cathartic to operate military-grade technology....You get to run a machine that can kill you. IT'S FUN!"

Approximately 40 "drop outs and extreme technology inventors" make up the Seemen. Their leader, Kal Spelletich, will be performing this show with at least one other artist. Kal will also be giving a talk about his life, his art, and the machine art movement at CU Denver on Thursday night at 7:30.

The group began in 1990 in Austin, Texas, and has since been seen across the United States, Europe, and Canada. They are featured regulars at the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert, and have had their sculpture displayed in the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Museum.

Shayne Martinsen, a New Havoc artist, first saw the Seemen at Burning Man. "It was amazing," he said. "They had a lot of big machines, remote control machines. They had flame-throwers mounted on the robots, torching the props. They had a strip mall set up, and cheerleaders on the side, and near the end of the show I think they burned the mall."

Their show lasts roughly an hour, to be followed by the New Havoc Amateurs show and dancing to music mixed by DJs Cue, Motif, and Crackah.

The New Havoc Amateurs performance, while similar, will not be interactive. Instead, they emphasize the role of the 12 New Havoc performers through their fire stunts and suspension piercing. While the Seemen's robot show, according to their press release, seeks to "poetically symbolize man's struggles and triumphs," the New Havoc Amateurs explore themes of post- apocalyptic primitivism. They coat themselves in tribal body paint and mud before they come onstage.

"It 's not a religious practice," says New Havoc artist Eric Dewine, "but we want people to take what they can from it." Their half-hour performance is divided up into three sections. The first, the fire show, involves fire spinning -- twirling lit cables into shapes and even faces. The group also eats fire from flaming batons as musicians drum in the background to build mood. In the second part, the suspension piercing, an artist is pierced through his back and then suspended from the ceiling.

The third section of their show features kinetic sculptures and robots. Joe Richie and Zach Smith, the group's machine artists, have assembled an eight-and-a-half-foot tall spinning torch, a flailing tentacle machine, and a series of tethered "walkers and crawlers." A large radio-controlled piece that runs directly through and around the audience pulls itself along with a backhoe-shaped arm.

The New Havoc Amateurs have recently gained fame through performing local shows with similar acts. As Joe Richie points out, "The tools are going to be the same, but how they come together for each show is different."

Although New Havoc has performed their art at raves and will have DJs and dancing at their show, the artists are quick to point out that their work differs from a rave in important ways. "Our art is more real, whereas raves are more synthetic," explains Joe. "You're dealing with physical elements, the fire and the robots. And the suspension piercers -- you can see that on TV, and it's still not the same. Our work is performance art."

Although the Seemen will make no guarantees about the safety of their interactive art -- after all, it calls for volunteers to get close to the fire -- New Havoc puts barriers around its pieces and is responsible for its open flame permit, among other things.

Audience members can choose their own level of risk. The Seemen hope they'll aim high. As Kal notes on the Seemen's Web site, "I wanted to do something that was alive, that made you jump out of the way, that threatened your preconceived notions, that didn't separate the audience from the artist or the art."

And don't forget that engine.

No venue was set as of press time. Further information about the show may be obtained by calling 303-864-1965 or on the Web at artcrimes_present.tripod.com. Tickets are around $15, and can be purchased at Propaganda Hypermedia at 3145 Larimer St, Denver. Their number is 303- 324-2724.