Hot air balloons and other inflatables

Technical illustration from 1818 showing early balloon design.

Model of the Montgolfier Brothers' design at the London Science Museum.

A burner directing flame into the envelope.

Stainless steel fuel tanks, wrapped in red insulating covers, mounted vertically, and with fuel gauges, during refueling.

Bees.

Turtle.

Abbey of Saint Gall.

Something of a tangent this- it's not the same technology at all- but here's an historic photo of the Hindenburg disaster:

Bouncy castle.

Bouncy castle.

"Catch a Wave" inflatable slide.

Pink Floyd's Animals album cover featuring a flying pig over Battersea power station.


The flying pig in question on the day of the photo-shoot.

The Rolling Stones' inflatable stage cock, used for the 'Starfucker' finale.

The Rolling Stones' inflatable dogs, used on the Urban Jungle tour.

Ruby and Angie, the Rolling Stones' inflatable Honky Tonk Women.

The Teacher in Pink Floyd's The Wall stage show, .

Floyd's Wall pig redux.

The Daily Mail reports on the perils of inflatable art:


Artist Maurice Agis arriving at court following the death of two women

The creator of an inflatable artwork that blew away killing two women was fined £10,000 yesterday.

Relatives of Claire Furmedge, 38, and Elizabeth Collings, 68, were in court to see Maurice Agis punished for breaching health and safety regulations. The artist, 77, was convicted last month at Newcastle Crown Court where a jury failed to decide on a manslaughter charge.

He will not have a retrial.

Timothy Langdale QC, for Agis, said yesterday that the artist 'can't understand how Dreamspace came to go up' in Chester-le-Street, Co Durham, in 2006.

He added: 'This tragedy is going to live with him for the rest of his life. He was shattered on the day and has been shattered since.'

Mrs Furmedge, of Chesterle-Street, and Mrs Collings, of Seaham, fell from the 50-yard inflatable when it broke free in a park. Another 27 people were injured.

Chester-le-Street council, which assessed the exhibit's safety, was fined £20,000 yesterday after admitting breaching health and safety rules.

Brouhaha International, run by Agis's son Giles and involved in staging the Dreamspace, was fined £4,000 after a guilty plea.


The Dreamscape structure, which blew away across a field before being stopped by a pole

The court was told Agis, of Bethnal Green, East London, lived on a £125 weekly pension and that only a financial penalty he was able to repay could be imposed.

The accident happened after ropes tethering the 50-yard by 50-yard inflatable sculpture were not strong enough and the artwork broke free, flipping over and tumbling across a park before crashing into a CCTV pole, where it deflated.

Among those injured by the artwork was a three-year-old girl, whose life was saved by a passing anaesthetist and the prompt actions of an air ambulance crew who flew her to hospital. The families of both Mrs Furmedge and Mrs Collings were in court to see Agis, the council and Brouhaha International sentenced.

The court heard Agis, from Kirton Gardens, Bethnal Green, east London, wrote to the families after the tragedy, vowing never to show Dreamspace again.

Mr Langdale said Agis had been an artist his whole working life after growing up in an orphanage.
He relied on grants to fund his artwork and his sole income is a £125 a week state pension.
Durham Police, the Health and Safety Executive and the Crown Prosecution Service spent more than £200,000 on the inquiry into the tragedy.


A view inside Dreamscape. 27 people were injured in the accident at Chester-le-Street.

eddie wrote:
Model of the Montgolfier Brothers' design at the London Science Museum.

Lovely!

eddie wrote:
Abbey of Saint Gall.

That floating... it reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki's movies

Jeremy Deller's inflatable Stonehenge gives Glasgow a bounce in its step

The Turner prize winner's bouncy new interactive artwork, Sacrilege, kicks off the Glasgow international festival of visual art

Kirsty Scott

guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 April 2012 16.14 BST


King of the bouncy castle ... Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege at Glasgow Green is part of the Glasgow international festival of visual arts. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

"It's a bit weird and random," says Michael Mclaughlan, 50, bopping gently up and down in the middle of the giant inflatable Stonehenge that has sprung up on Glasgow Green. "They should get Alex Salmond down here to bounce about."

Around him, children and adults are discarding their shoes and climbing tentatively on to the grandest of bouncy castles, a large-scale interactive work by the Turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. Titled Sacrilege, it's Deller's first major public project in Scotland and a centrepiece of the Glasgow international festival of visual art which launched on Friday.

"It's something for people to interact with, it's a big public sculpture," says Deller, who was on hand for the project's launch. "It is also a way of interacting with history and archaeology and culture in a wider sense.

"We had 112 kids bouncing on it this morning. It's a very entry-level way into thinking about ancient history for five-year-olds. It's good to play with our history and culture. Stonehenge is part of British identity but no one knows what it was for."

Deller doesn't think Scots will care that Stonehenge is a classic British – if not English – icon.

"It's about tribes. It's not about politics. It's pre-political, literally. It's great doing it in Glasgow. This is a city where you can get things done as an artist."

The GI festival, which runs until 7 May, will showcase the work of more than 130 artists across a variety of venues. Highlights include the Turner prize nominee Karla Black, who will be exhibiting a series of major new sculptures at the city's Gallery of Modern Art, and the artist and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis, who will give the Scottish premiere of a new performance work for stage at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA).

"For the past two decades, Glasgow has been the home of some of the very best new talent in contemporary visual art," said Sarah Munro, the festival chair. "The city is ambitious in its determination to support artists working at the cutting edge today."

Sacrilege will be at Glasgow Green for the 18 days of the festival before being shipped to other destinations across the UK and finally to London for the Olympic Games.

The installation is deflated at 6pm every night and re-inflated in minutes the following morning. Project manager James Hutchinson said it had caught the imagination of Glaswegians.

"I think it would take a mean heart not to smile as you are passing by," he said. "People have been wanting to get on and we have had all ages from seven to 70. Nobody knows what Stonehenge is for. It doesn't belong to anybody. Not the Druids or those interested in British or English history or Glaswegians."

"We come to the green a lot and I was surprised to see it and wondered what it was, but I think it's great," says Robert Barnes, 72, who lives locally. "My grandson's been playing on it and I can't get him off."