Miniature racetrack sculpture, inspired by cult sci-fi film Metropolis, takes artist four years to make and features 1,000 cars travelling at 230mph
Category: Health, Science & Technology
Via: the-irascible-harry-krishner • 13 years ago • 2 comments
Futuristic: The sculptor Chris Burden, who is based in Topanga Canyon, California, has more than 1,100 moving toy cars in his installation that travel at speeds of up to 230mph.
The 1927 science-fiction film Metropolis is an expressionistic portrayal of a dystopian, capitalist society which has become a cult classic among movie lovers.
Artist Chris Burden used the film by German director Fritz Lang as the inspiration for his racetrack sculpture and spent four years building Metropolis II.
The model city features 1,100 toy cars zipping around a track through miniature skyscrapers, at speeds of up to 230mph. The kinetic sculpture is set to open to the public at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California on January 14.
The grid is made up of steel beams and has 18 roads, including one six-lane freeway and train tracks. The speed of the tiny vehicles, which were custom-made, means that more than 100,000 cars pass through the system in an hour. The cars are pulled up the conveyor belts by magnets and then roll down the other sides. ( Cont'd )
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Very, very cool; really amazing actually. And I think an importantpieceof work as well. The realization that mass travel is changing, has incorporated itself into culture in nifty ways.
it really does look a lot like the scenes in Metropolis. [ Click on picture to embiggen ]