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| Birth of Venus by Larry Moss and Kelly Cheatle with help from Cathy Adams (and Sandro Botticelli) |
Recently, there's been some discussions about the desire to watch a complex sculpture build from start to finish. At BHQ, we've been aware of such compulsions for some time. We got great responses for BHQ event coverage of IBAC conventions (IBAC 2003 is a good example), as we provided the first glimpses of large sculpture entry creation through different stages. At Ballooniversity in 2006, people quietly and respectfully watched Rie Hosokai craft her non-round competition entry. Volunteering to participate with large sculpture competition entries has long been a great way to gain first-hand observations, as have large community builds like Balloon Manor and BalloonTown USA.
In the past, we've talked about setting up a web cam at conventions. However, technological equipment, web access, and vantage point never really came together in an efficient way until recently. In case you missed it, a team of balloon artists crafted a complex art installation in front of a fixed-mount web camera last month. The team was comprised of Larry Moss, Kelly Cheatle, and Cathy Adams. The sculpture was a re-interpretation of the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli for the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The full installation began on September 20. The "Venus Cam" snapped a picture once a minute. Photos of people viewing the sculpture were also taken during the first week of sculpture display. The pictures were later used to create a time lapse video of the complete sculpture building process, compressing a 3-day process into a 2 minute, 42 second movie.
Now that it's been done successfully, we've been kicking around ideas on how to adapt this approach to event coverage. The equipment and web access components are stable. The trick will be selecting workable, focused vantage points. Would jam room participants be willing to hang out for the length of a complex sculpture creation in a jam room 'hot seat'? Would entrants in large sculpture competitions lose the impact of the final 'reveal' if people at home, and at the convention, had been viewing their progress for days? If so, would time lapse sequences be as relatable if the sequential web cam images had been supressed during the actual build time? Would competition entrants be comfortable in being asked to be the subject for real-time and time-lapse observations?
We'd love to get your thoughts, as we consider BHQ coverage for 2010 events. For all of the implications, we can't get past the thought that it'd be great to have had sequences of some of the great moments in the creation of large-scale balloon sculptures in our industry. Marvin Hardy's kalaidoscopes, Troy Apprill's mobile (in contrast with all of the other entries that year), the list is long.
The BHQ artist directory has been tweaked for tweets. Twitter.com, the microblogging site, has been getting a lot of attention recently on BHQ and several people have asked about ways of integrating twitter status messages (tweets) into BHQ. Now your directory information can be more current than ever. Put your twitter username into your directory info so that people can follow you on twitter and so your latest tweets will show up when people find your info. What's more, if you maintain a BHQ portfolio, your latest status will also show on your portfolio any time anyone visits. As an example, check out Larry Moss' directory entry.
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| Parade Sticks by Clifton Gold |
Clifton Gold, of Cliff's Twists in San Jose, California offers a bright and cheery portfolio of unique designs. The sculptures he created for the San Jose Holiday Parade are especially eye-catching. Cliff's gave out balloons on the San Jose State University campus for the 2009 Balloons Around the World celebration.
Visit the portfolio of Clifton Gold
