At this stage, the blue-prints for the construction of the bamboo structure were finalized. The whole structure was developed with 3D software. As a result of this development, we know the amount of bamboo poles needed, we can zoom in to conflicting joints and see the details, we know the weight of the structure, the volume of gas needed, and so on. Also at this stage, we built and tested the gasbags that will be sandwiched between the bamboo rings that compose the structure. Finally, as a structural test, we built the smallest ring of the final banana - 16 meters in diameter.
Getting a 300-meter banana to float over 30 km up in the air, somewhere in the stratosphere. To be seen from all around Texas for a month.
The work, Geostationary Banana Over Texas, is by a known Canadian artist, Cesar Saetz. Its budget is about 1 million dollars. So far, they have a little more than 1/8, but the work keeps developing.
Comparable to... what? Cattelan's Hollywood? Christo and Jeanne-Claude? Smits' Cloud? Art-in-space programs? Surrealist games? Dada?
