By Vurdlak on April 19, 2006, with 125 Comments
This Optical Illusion is mega super extra pro version – ultimate magic trick, I tell you! There was no digital modification done with this image, I can guarantee you that. Yet, it is unbeleivable and not understandable to my humble mind. This public installment was also done by creative artist called “Blue Sky”, and you can find more about this installment on his homepage. Previously I’ve posted his wonderfull mural called “Tunnelvision”, so be sure to check it out! “Levitating Dumpster” debuted at the Columbia Music Festival Association’s fundraising ‘Street Bash’ and no one suspected it was art installment. Attendants believed it was an actual dumpster and were unable to figure out what supported it. Autor and his wife are tight-lipped about the secret behind this magic act. Can you solve this enigma? Can’t wait to hear your thoughts. My mind is blank regarding this one… maybe mirror reflecting dumpster on it’s upper side, while bottom of the mirror is transparent so you can see the house and the fence?
(24 votes)
in the last photo the shadow is way back from the dumpster.
theres something wrong with the gate and its shadow…on the left side of its shadow u can see the strings of the gat, on the right side the shadow is blurred.
so i assume the dumbster is standing on the surface and everithing what seems to be under it is painted on the surface, but that means people couldnt walk around the construction like BestBassoon said… maybe people were only allowed to see it from far behind??
the installment plays on the fact that when we see a familiar object, we associate universal characteristics with the object such as smell, texture or in this case weight. the object looks heavy so therefore it must be heavy in our minds.
when he made a replica of the object, i think he went out of his way to use super light weight materials and replicate them to look heavy.
I think it is made out of Styrofoam and painted, hence the plastic bags. They are lightweight but add a sense of realism to the installment. He then would support it in the air with fishing line as someone earlier mentioned.
Marcel Duchamp did something similar in one of his Readymades, ‘Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Selavy?’ He hand sculpted what looked like sugar cubes in a birdcage but were actually marble pieces. So when you tried to lift the installment, you would misjudge the weight and be surprised by how heavy it was.
true illusions.
this is a link about marcel duchamps readymade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Not_Sneeze,_Rose_S%C3%A9lavy%3F
it is a helium filled balloon with a thin light plastic shell over it kept in place by fans or string or something just floating. no one can touch it and it stays in place so no one sees that it is extremely light and in fact just floating like a balloon with a weight on it, so everyone thinks its a real dumpster. i bet if you threw a rock at it it would bob and shake and jiggle like a normal party balloon
the dumpster might be supported by transparent cables that run across to different buildings.Other than that theory of mine,im clueless.
Seen something similar at a motor show in UK – a ‘levitating’ car – in fact it was a helium filled balloon, extremely well designed and painted and with very tiny remote controlled propellors at each corner.
I think that the background under the dumpster is not real,it is painted onto a block which the dumpster sits on top of. if you look at the building in the background the window on the bottom right seems slightly smaller than the other windows! lol who knows!
a big crane maybe?
The only thing i can think of is a custom made dumpster in appearance lighter than air object. an object of this size would be able to harbor enough lighter than air substance if made of the right materials… but even if this was the case, which is really unlikely, that is an amazing piece of art!
Dumpster is art on top of the picture.
The lighter-than-air explanation is the only one that makes sense to me. A dumpster made from balsa wood, painted by an artist, could fool anybody (especially from 20 feet away. Put a bunch of helium balloons insisde, and up it goes. Superfine monofilament fishing line would be enough to hold it in place.
As it is said on artist´s site, that was not a real dumpster, but a replica, copy of it. So, I think it was a very light object made of thin plastic or carton, and it was hanging in the air with a thin transparent horizontal thread that was attached to the nearest buidings.
it fell from a hieght then picture was taken before touching the ground
I thingk they took a picture whhile it was being lifted by a garbage truck for emptying, and superimposed it over a picture of the exact same location at a different time. Perhaps if the twi pictures were taken at varying times of day it would also explain why the shaddow “feels” wrong.
So one part is it doesn’t weigh much, e.g., it is Styrofoam or something like that. So, whatever is holding it there doesn’t have to hold very much weight, indeed, it may have more concern about wind than weight.
A couple of nearly invisible rigid wires pulled from a not excessive distance might do it. The photos are unclear as to whether there are any nearby buildings or poles tall enough for suspending such wires.
If the two photos are from the same exhibition it is worth noticing that the “dumpster” is not in the same position, so it has moved due, perhaps, to being blown by the wind.
A bit of information that is missing is whether at the public installation the public was allowed to approach the object (the ground beneath it). If not, that is an obvious tell of the use of a transparent pedestal, although exactly where and how is not as obvious. Again, it could be at a short distance with some rigid or semirigid arm used to attach to the object.
The shadows are right. All shadows are behind the objects (like the dumpster). The shadow of the gate seems to be to the front, but it is really to the back, it is just that the gate it is not touching the street and you are seeing under the gate. That’s the reason that you can not see the other shadows.
Really cool
Really big magnets?
The entire thing is an inflatable balloon.
OH MY GOSH IT S A NICE OIC BUT I WANNA KNOW HOW IT DONE
yeh i wanna know how its done too >:(
I hate saying it but this seems like it could be a fake. I say that while admitting I don’t know if she dumpster is “stable” or not, but it is clearly at a sharper angle in the bottom right picture than the more evenly flat position of the top picture…
i think its not a mirror image.(coz its shadow is reflected on the surface of the road..)if it is not reealy fake, may be four transparent glass stands(may not be same height) at each corner is used to hold the dumpster.
Ok so what I’m thinking is that the artist made a light weight replica of the dumpster and filled it with helium filled balloons, but enough balloons to counter weight how heavy the replica is so that it balances then just let it float there and amaze people.
Can you walk under or through it?
i cant under stand this? but a lot of them are awsome
what if the dumpster was being droped from a crane
it could be made of some extremely light sbstence filled with heilium. P.S.totally love this site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good for trolling! O.O
It’s a paining underneath of dumpster to look like sky and gate and ground, its not floating or anything it just looks like theres no ground underneath it, tis all, Iv’e seen something similar to this before, it’s a trink of the eye :)
painting*
well u know what? i think that the whole seen is painted
i saw something similar in Disney Land where there was a wall painted to look like the street when on for like 6 blocks and it looked pretty freaking realistic…….