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Posts Tagged ‘Giant’

Capping Chernobyl: Nuclear Disaster Site Covered in Giant Protective Dome

05 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

chernobyl-dome

In an unprecedented feat of engineering, the world’s most infamous nuclear disaster site is being covered by a huge prefabricated steel arch designed to shield the world from its fallout. Made to fit over the so-called sarcophagus, a crumbling concrete and lead shelter initially erected at the site, the New Safe Confinement structure spans nearly 1,000 feet horizontally.

The original protective shell over the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor was a hurried affair and never meant to be permanent — 4,000 people in the region were still killed in the initial catastrophic meltdown but many more were saved thanks to this hasty intervention. In the days, weeks and months following the disaster, hundreds of thousands of evacuees and emergency workers were exposed to dangerous radiation.

construction-dome

At the cost of 1.5 billion dollars the new lid is also not a solution to last forever, but it is designed to last for 100 years. Weighing 36,000 tons and taller than the statue of liberty (354 feet) the monstrous structure is only partially complete — it still needs to be rendered airtight and radiation equipment is yet to be installed. The entire thing has been constructed offsite on nearby land before being moved into place.

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Attack of the Giant Spider! Watch This Optical Illusion Mural Come to Life

20 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

spider-mural-1

A nightmarishly oversized spider emerges from a gaping hole in a wall in this anamorphic optical illusion mural by French street artist Denys Pasco, better known as Densoner. Known for his highly detailed graffiti style as well as oversized murals frequently featuring creatures of the wild, Densoner created a creepy effect with the massive arachnid’s legs stretching out toward the viewer.

resized

The process of creating ‘Eat Me’ is captured on video and sped up so you can watch the spider come alive in the hands of the artist. Denoner starts off by painting a photorealistic black hole on a tattered urban wall, with the edges painted in shadow to make it appear 3D.

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Then, with a few strokes of white, the spider begins to appear, becoming more and more threatening as the artist works. Watch the video all the way to the end for a fun surprise.

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Art of Deception: NYC Monument to Giant Octopus Attack Misdirects Tourists

09 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

fake-ferry-memorial

Visitors to Battery Park in Manhattan will find memorials to fallen soldiers, sunken sailors and 400 passengers who perished when a Staten Island ferry was attacked by a giant octopus.

puzzling-fake-memorial

This last event, however convincing (thanks to 250-pound cast-bronze sculpture and plaque), is entirely fictional, part of surprisingly elaborate hoax. That would be hard to guess at a glance, though, given the thought and craft that went into this fake memorial and the other materials that were designed to bolster its credibility.

octopus-attack-ferry-boat

Artist Joseph Reginella invented the scenario, crafting a website, a mock documentary, news articles and fliers to complete the deception. The monument even directs people to the Ferry Disaster Memorial museum. It also weaves in real-world facts, like the name of the ship.

He had the idea while taking the ferry himself. When his won asked whether there were dangerous creatures waiting below, he invented the story, then spent months elaborating on the fabrication.

fake-ferry-monument

To keep the city from taking it away, he has moved the memorial from place to place. To add credibility, he made the day of the event the same as the assassination of President Kennedy, something that would plausibly overshadow such a massive historic disaster.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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When Art Attacks! Giant Spherical Sculpture Escapes Museum

21 Apr

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Screen Shot 2016-04-20 at 2.43.25 PM

How do you stop a 15-foot-tall, 250-pound ball when it’s rolling down the street, running over cars and treating the city like a giant pinball machine? Employees at the Toledo Museum in Ohio had to figure out the answer to that question really quickly one day last August when a storm swept through the city, dislodging the giant sculpture from its perch on a downtown rooftop and sending it barreling through the streets as if it had a mind of its own. It even pauses at an intersection and then makes a left turn, as if trying to determine the best escape route, as the frantic museum workers run after it.

An observer who happened to be on an adjacent rooftop captured much of the ensuing chaos and put the clips on Instagram and YouTube. Luckily, the ball is inflatable, so there was no risk of it actually crushing the cars it rolled right over, though it did bend a few street signs and freak out a few drivers. The ball itself, created by artist Kurt Perschke, sustained a little bit of damage on its adventure, but returned to the museum to finish out its residence in Toledo.

redball paris BART Station Market St.

redball project 3

The sculpture has traveled around the world, lodged in every imaginable urban nook and cranny, from alleyways in London and bridges in Paris to the Montreal Biosphere and Chicago’s Grant Park. It’s currently en route to Memphis, Tennessee to begin its next residency.

Bopiliao St in Taipei.

redball project

“Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday,” says Perschke. “Through the magnetic, playful and charismatic nature of the RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine what if?”

redball proejct 2 redball chicago

That last statement is especially true when the question is, “What if the ball gets loose and runs around the city?” It’s kind of a shame it didn’t get to travel farther before it was captured and returned.

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Blooming Street Lights: Giant Flowers Interact with the City

03 Nov

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

flower lights 1

Step beneath these massive red flowers in Jerusalem’s Vallero Square and they’ll bloom before your eyes, offering light after dark and shelter from the rain. The interactive installation by HQ Architects reacts to pedestrians and traffic, their crimson textile petals filling with air when motion is sensed nearby.

flower lights 2

flower lights 3

Standing 30 feet tall in two pairs on opposite ends of the square, the flowers can be seen from afar, providing an eye-catching visual for visitors to a busy nearby market. In addition to functioning as public art and street lights, the flowers provide cover to commuters getting on and off the tram.

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When the square is full of action, the flowers billow, creating a sense of movement. They go still when all is quiet late at night, their petals closing. An air compressor is built into the top of each one. Named the ‘Warde Project,’ the installation is part of an effort to revitalize a square that felt a little shabby. [Photos by Dor Kedmi]

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Escape Artist: Giant Ball Rolls Down Streets, ‘Round Corners

24 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

redballroll

Wind and rain conspired to set loose a gigantic inflatable piece of installation art, turning it into a kind of impromptu performance piece for drivers and bystanders as one (very big) red balloon rolled by. In some regards, the resulting viral sensation has taken on a life of its own, extending the reach of the sculpture far beyond its target audience.

caught

Designed to be a source of urban interaction, the RedBall was in the process of being wedged between two downtown businesses before being redirected by forces of nature. Museum staff, installation participants and a handful of bystanders chased the recently-liberated sphere down the streets, eventually catching, deflating and returning it to the installation site. Instagram user jeremy419 happened to catch much of the action from atop a nearby building. Meanwhile, a hacked version of video puts a fresh tomato-style spin on this unexpectedly interactive work of art.

freshtomatoe

The museum’s director of communications, Kelly Garrow, recapped the sequence of events for reporters: “It started pouring rain, so the ball was wet and slippery. The wind picked up, and it popped up and just started going. You can see in the video that’s going viral that it rolled about halfway down a block and then mysteriously took a left-hand turn. It made its way partially down the street before people caught up with it.“

red ball escape

Despite its size (15 feet in diameter), the ball weighs only 250 pounds, minimizing its potential for damage to one bent street sign – quite tame compared to rounded corporate art sculpture set loose in Fight Club as part of Project Mayhem.

public ball of art

A world-traveling artwork, the ball was created by Kurt Perschke to be pressed into tight spaces and has been in play for nearly a decade without incident. Meanwhile, add this escapee to Nena’s 99 Luftballons lyrics and you get a nice rounded “100 red balloons go by.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Black Gold: Turning Oil Tankers into Giant Land Architecture

09 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

black gold ship reuse

For an inevitable future when oil gives out in the Middle East (or nautical supply chains are replaced by pipes), a series of designers have envisioned creative ways to reuse the behemoths that currently ship this infamous commodity around the world.

oil tanker at night

oil tanker permanent dock

The Black Gold Project proposes a different kind of design revolution for an area of the world currently striving to build the tallest and most stunning structures on the planet: pragmatic conversions of shipping vessels into functional land structures.

oil tanker inteiror design

oil tanker open space

A joint project of Chris Collaris Design, Ruben Esser, Sander Bakker, and Patrick van der Gronde, the resulting renderings take advantage of the versatility found inside such huge and open interior volumes.

oil tanker at sunset

oil tanker section diagram

Cultural exhibitions, shopping centers and art museums could all be housed inside these massive hulls, not to mention residential and office spaces. The decks above could become public parks and performance spaces.

oil shipping frieight conversion

oil tanker aerial plan

There are practical drawbacks to be considered, however, including the impact of waves, saltwater and wind over time as well. Still, as a conceptual project, the idea is compelling (if more poetic than realistic): turn the very vessels responsible for the rise and fall of these oil-producing nations into something new that remains, at the same time, a monument to days gone by.

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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Landskating: Giant Chinese Landscapes Drawn with Roller Blades

26 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

landskating creative drawing process

Modified inline skates holding pots of black pigment allow this artist to create her huge works (up to 40 feet or more) while rolling around the room, with results that look remarkably like smaller-scale works of hand-drawn calligraphy.

landskating art landscape making

giant calligraphy style drawing

A student at the California College of art, Tian Haisu has dubbed her approach Landskating. She notes that her “whole body is involved” in this unusual process, filling her creations with a unique kind of “power, speed and rhythm.”

landskating artist sketches

giant landskating art work

Her works feature landscapes, plants and architecture, all created by pressing down on giant unrolled sheets of paper deployed after she has sketched out and thought through these larger compositions on small sheets.

giant mountain scene

As with any artistic approach, it took the artist time to learn the medium, executing with her feet rather than her hands in a way that both liberates the creative process but also involves complexities and stylistic impacts that are not always easy to predict or control.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Compliment Shower: Kind Words Rain Down from Giant Spigot

10 Mar

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

compliment shower 1

Would reading a message like “You could make a lemon laugh” make you feel good enough about yourself to spread kindness to others? That’s the idea behind the world’s biggest compliment shower, a massive spigot installed in Antwerp’s Central Station in honor of International Compliments Day 2015.

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Dreamed up by creative agency FRIENDSHIP and commissioned by fashion retailer e5, the installation features what looks like the most absurdly oversized shower head in existence looming over commuters as they pass through the station. A sign simply says, ‘Pull for compliment.’

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Anyone who does so (not minding the fine print, which reads ‘Smile, you’re on camera,’) instantly gets hundreds of complimentary phrases rained upon them and everyone watching. The little blue waterdrop-shaped papers bear messages like “You look like a million bucks today.”

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Real Life Photoshop: Giant Eraser Takes Out Urban Scenery

29 Mar

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Real Life Photoshop Eraser 1

In another case of Photoshop invading the real world in three dimensions, giant erasers are appearing all over urban surfaces in London. Murals, street signs, billboards and trash bins are among the objects getting the Photoshop treatment with ‘Street Eraser,’ a joint project by artists Guus Ter Beek and Tayfun Sarier.

Real Life Photoshop Eraser 2

Real Life Photoshop Eraser 3

Real Life Photoshop Eraser 4

The installation consists of a series of handmade stickers plastered all over the city, featuring the gray and white checkered pattern that appears when you erase something in Adobe Photoshop.

Real Life Photoshop Eraser 5

Photoshop Eraser 2

Photoshop Tools 3

A similar project used cardboard props to recreate the look of a photoshopped image in progress, with the photographer using the eraser tool on himself. Another photographer takes Photoshop tools literally with humorous interpretations of commands like ‘convert to smart object’, ‘smudge’ and ‘puppet warp.’

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Giant’

Capping Chernobyl: Nuclear Disaster Site Covered in Giant Protective Dome

Attack of the Giant Spider! Watch This Optical Illusion Mural Come to Life

Art of Deception: NYC Monument to Giant Octopus Attack Misdirects Tourists

When Art Attacks! Giant Spherical Sculpture Escapes Museum

Blooming Street Lights: Giant Flowers Interact with the City

Escape Artist: Giant Ball Rolls Down Streets, ‘Round Corners

Black Gold: Turning Oil Tankers into Giant Land Architecture

Landskating: Giant Chinese Landscapes Drawn with Roller Blades

Compliment Shower: Kind Words Rain Down from Giant Spigot

Real Life Photoshop: Giant Eraser Takes Out Urban Scenery

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Posts Tagged ‘Giant’

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