The Urballoon art installation has a message for you

What is it about art and technology? People just can't get enough of it, and yet, it hardly ever seems to be any good. Far be it from us to pass judgment, however, on the Urballoon -- an "urban media space" wherein a balloon hovers three stories in the air, equipped with a projector and a wireless connection. The balloon / projector is used to "broadcast" images or text sent to it via a website onto the ground below. Anyone can hop on the page and create a message for the balloon, so we'll assume they have very good profanity filters. The artist behind the project, Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena, says that the Urballoon, "Seeks to juxtapose emerging notions of mobility, P2P networking, syndication and blogging with traditional uses of social space, broadcasting and outdoor advertising." Um... whatever you say, Carlos.

[Handle IT @ Sep 26th 2007 2:11PM]

I can hear the BB guns being loaded as I type.

[nikola @ Sep 26th 2007 2:27PM]

Ok, I get that the rays give you cancer. But the poisonous gas tentacles is pure overkill.

[t-bone @ Sep 26th 2007 2:12PM]

Is it sad that when something cool comes along I immediately start seeing ways for advertising to ruin it?

[Jon @ Sep 26th 2007 2:15PM]

ARe you kidedin' I was just looking to see if I can use it to advertise. Lame, but it is my target market.

[Jon @ Sep 26th 2007 2:16PM]

wow, I really can't type

[StrangeBum @ Sep 26th 2007 2:58PM]

No, no you can't. Sure you want to be advertising something after that?

[Brad @ Sep 26th 2007 2:20PM]

"The artist seeks to juxtapose P2P, DRM, WiMAX, and a bunch of other technology buzzwords against angry parents who are ashamed he became an artist rather than doing something productive with his life. He also seeks to become just popular enough to have his next project paid for by someone else."

Even if the data is wireless...where's the projector's power come from? I'm guessing "wireless" is relative here.

[blackfeather @ Sep 26th 2007 2:32PM]

If the balloon is tethered, why should it be wireless at all? He should use power and data cables as the tether. Hmm... i wonder which is lighter - a huge lithium ion battery, or a 1000 foot power cable. I wonder which is safer... nevermind the crash, I want to see this thing Hindenburg when some sharp-shooter pierces the battery.

[Brad @ Sep 26th 2007 3:07PM]

3 stories != 1000 ft. This thing hangs maybe 35ft in the air.

[blackfeather @ Sep 26th 2007 2:27PM]

I can't wait to see the great big 300-foot wide BSOD on the ground.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 26th 2007 2:39PM]

not all tech art is bad, I thought genpets.com was ok...

and that sms wall thing

[PDubNYC @ Sep 26th 2007 2:56PM]

The biggest issue I see is the fact that it hovers only 30 FEET above the ground. That's definitely low enough to annoy the sh*t out of you.

IMHO, this is one dumba** idea. No purpose, not terribly novel, most likely will be shot down.

[Kevin @ Sep 26th 2007 3:20PM]

If there are two words I hate in an art description, it's "urban" and "space." They just really irritate me for some reason.

[kirk @ Sep 26th 2007 3:34PM]

woo hoo. free projector!

[oshean @ Sep 26th 2007 5:07PM]

All urballoon art belong to us.

[blahblah @ Sep 27th 2007 4:04PM]

uh... what's the point..? And the idea was developed by another guy in China. I thought this was a much a better context for your sms broadcasting, www.txtualhealing.com