Giant Freakin Robot

A young lad or lady coming of age in the Star Wars universe has a lot of choices in front of them. Save up for a ship and become a smuggler? Maybe take that correspondence course on bounty hunting? What with the tussles between the Empire and the Rebellion, there are powerful forces that would like nothing more than to slap a blaster in your hands and shove you toward the front lines. But how’s a starry-eyed youth to choose sides? After all, the Rebellion seem to be the good guys, but the Empire gets better health benefits and those awesome accents. As with most marketing campaigns, at some point they’re going to fall back on the old maxim that sex sells.

That’s the thinking behind the sexy Star Wars recruitment posters you can see above and in the gallery below. Both factions are represented, each by a different artist, but both use the same time-honored tactic: luring recruits in with a bit of strategic T & A.

Science fiction has toyed with the idea of organic spacecraft for decades, with quite a few varieties gracing the big and small screens over the years. There was Farscape’s Moya, Babylon 5’s Vorlon ships, even Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Tin Man.” But what if all of the spaceships out there were organic? It’s one of those bizarre questions that might flit through your mind on a lazy Tuesday afternoon, but then most of us would get distracted and move on. Not artist Josh Ln, however. He peeled back the hulls of numerous famous fictional starships and gave us a look at the bones that hold them together. Just don’t ask me where the crew is supposed to fit, because there are some things it’s better not to think about.

Reading audience, it is rare that I publicly promote the use of hallucinogens, because they’re not for everyone, and those people who react badly ruin it for everyone else. Considering the light-based art/design installments that the European-based Squidsoup has astounded the world with, it seems silly to consider that mushrooms and acid exist for any other reason beyond experiencing these exhibits. Not that I’m condoning their use. I can’t even condone looking at some of this stuff sober. But I demand you do it.

Now on display at the Galleri ROM in Oslo, Norway, Squidsoup’s latest project “Submergence” is distorting spatial perception with 8,064 equally spaced hanging lights that fill a room from top to bottom. The lights are able to hit an astounding array of colors and shades, and the multitude of programmed patterns change almost too rapidly to do anything but stare agog. I’m assuming there are motion sensors in the ceiling that track the movement of people walking through, as the lights can follow a person as they walk. Unless somebody’s just controlling it like a spotlight. Either way, I’m impressed.

Check out the video below with a towel held up to both of your ears, just in case your brain explodes and starts leaking. The early part is some of the most beautiful and simple imagery I’ve ever seen, and by the time the electronic music kicks in near the end, I was considering how much trouble I’d be in if I got caught trying to steal all of it.

I don’t know what it is about the phrase “art installation” that immediately makes my upper lip curl, and my brain adds the word “pretentious” before my every thought. Which is ridiculous, as most large-scale art projects are admirably amazing, but it’s the ones that don’t sway me that somehow influence my opinions of the rest. But I’m nothing if not awestruck by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s latest piece.

Lozano-Hemmer, who hails from Mexico City, is a decorated artist with many years of wonderful exhibits behind him, frequently involving light in some capacity. His “Flatsun” project has over 60,000 LED lights set on a large disc a little over 4 1/2 feet in diameter. It simulates the surface of the sun, with all of its fiery, turbulent beauty. Like a hyper-evolved lava lamp, it seems like this particular brand of light show would go well with hallucinogens and late ’60s rock.