THESE black balloons show just how easily scientific principles can be transformed into art.
To create his work, Lithuanian artist Tadao Cern tied pairs of balloons together and filled them with gases of different densities. The ones floating at the top contain helium and the lower ones air. Each pair is sealed in a glass tank filled with a mixture of helium and air. The relative densities of the gases inside the balloons and inside the tanks allow the balloons to float, one above the other, seemingly fixed in place. The effect is strangely disconcerting.
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Next Cern went supersized, making his own giant balloons from PVC that stretched up to 3 metres in diameter. Below, you can see some of his smaller home-made ones, each 1.2 metres across and filled with helium and heavier sulphur hexafluoride.
Cern says he wants the balloons to create a sense of playfulness, while also creating a sense of temporality since they will eventually burst.
鈥淲hen you get into a room filled with hundreds of them floating in the middle of the room, it feels like you鈥檙e in a virtual computer simulation,鈥� he says.
Artist
Tadao Cern
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淔loating world鈥�