Photographer Rüdiger Nehmzow captured these photos of clouds four miles above the Earth through open airplane doors. The video does a pretty good job of showing how they did it, maybe skip ahead to 2:30 or so just before they take off. More of his incredible work here.
Recent work from German photographer Werner Bartsch. The photos are on display at Flo Peters Gallery in Hamburg through February 26. (via things magazine)
Float is an upcoming documentary about the world of indoor rubber powered model airplanes. After watching it and doing some reading online, I’ve learned that the people who compete in free flight duration aeronautics are a special breed. Imagine spending 40 years of your life building self-propelled airplanes that weigh as much as a paperclip but maintain altitude for over 30 minutes. Oh, and you’d like to compete with others who do the same thing? Just catch the next flight to Serbia.
Current designs of these airplanes can fly for over 30 minutes on a single wound rubber motor, and the world record for time aloft is over one hour. These planes fly indoors, in large open spaces such as sporting arenas and aircraft and blimp hangers. The majority of participants in this hobby are over the age of 50, and the hobby itself is aging. As the digital age envelopes the younger generations, this hobby is becoming a lost art.
The goal of FLOAT is to document the hobby in its current state, and most importantly bring much needed attention and an injection of new and excited participants to help perpetuate this beautiful hobby.
According to the producers the final release date is still to be determined. As the interest in model airplanes has waned, so have the sporadic competitions from which footage can be shot, so keep an eye out at film festivals in a year or so. You can learn more about Float on their Kickstarter page. (thnx, tim!)
New work from Berlin-based artist Astrid Bin, described as “one thousand paper airplanes are suspended in flight, like flocking birds, or swarming insects.” Reading her bio I’ve decided she’s probably a pretty cool lady:
S. Astrid Bin is a British-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Past endeavors have included baiting and then unbaiting 100 mousetraps with her hands, making a picture of a pigeon from 538 pieces of toast, documenting an attempt at making a million dollars in a year, locking herself in a disused bank vault for ten nights, making light into a drawing medium, sending hundreds of postcards to an empty building, shaving her head, and occupying a phone booth for 24 hours. She likes to play with, manipulate, study, test and provoke the audience in meaningful ways. She has received death threats, hate mail and international press.
More photos over on http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/204617Saatchi. (via lustik)
Earlier this month Yves Rossy became the first man in history to complete aerobatic loops with a jet-pack. I recommend doing an HD full-screen for maximum jet-pack goodness. (via devour)
Some great shots of Fiona Banner‘s latest installation at Tate Britain. Fiona has suspended an enormous Sea Harrier nose-down from the ceiling just inches off the floor and polished an upside-down Sepecat Jaguar so visitors can see their reflection in it.
For Banner these objects represent the ‘opposite of language’, used when communication fails. In bringing body and machine into close proximity she explores the tension between the intellectual perception of the fighter plane and physical experience of the object.
(via we make money not art)
Swiss company senseFly has developed an idiot-proof aerial camera, the swinglet CAM, that’s almost completely autonomous. It takes off and lands by itself and you update its flight path via your laptop. Oh hell yes. (via theo)
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© 2010-2013 Christopher Jobson, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. I try my best to attribute images, videos, and quotes to their creators and original sources. If you see something on Colossal that's misattributed or you would like removed, please contact me. The Colossal logo and name Colossal are the trademarks of Christopher Jobson.
