I, for one, welcome our inflateable overlords!
Masayoshi Matsumoto spends a great deal of time making these, then photographs them and pops them.
Apparently each one runs a couple hours to produce. I bet he bombs at birthday parties.
Balloons can be evocative of other things, as well:
Charles Petillon’s “Heartbeat” installation in Covent Garden. So simple, so effective
Ice Swimmer says
Wow.
Caine says
Oh gods, I was looking at these last week or so, and was just blown. out. of. the. water. There are just no words for what Matsumoto can do. Have you seen him on Colossal?
chigau (違う) says
Is the third one down a tardigrade?
Marcus Ranum says
chigau@#3:
I believe it’s a chiclid. Tardigrades are cuter!
Marcus Ranum says
Caine@#2: I ran across him elsewhere (since I know you keep an eye on Colossal!) Sorry to scoop you… I just had to post something cheery after thinking about the horribleness that is F-35 for most of the afternoon.
Callinectes says
It’s a giant isopod.
Marcus Ranum says
Callinectes @#6:
It’s a giant isopod.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up!
Caine says
Marcus:
Oh, you didn’t! There’s way too much amazing art out there for any one person to cover. Colossal had some great photos of his recent work.
Cuttlefish says
I learned how to make simple balloon animals for Cuttledaughter’s birthday, long ago. I think I got as far as making a two-balloon doggie. With fewer than three attempts per each.
Reminds me of the notion (I’ve seen it in a few places now) that the Olympic Games coverage would be improved by having some schmuck like me in one of the heats, just to show how regular people would do alongside Olympians.
Marcus Ranum says
Cuttlefish@#9:
just to show how regular people would do alongside Olympians
I think it’d be cool to do that as a sort of side-event. There are some things regular people simply can’t do. Maybe have a college level athlete, an amateur, and an olympian. I would be perfectly happy to go out on a fencing strip against an olympian, just so I could say “daaaaayum!”