I saw Balloon Museum’s exhibit named Pop Air. It is about Inflatable Art. Visitors experience an interactive journey through interactive installations. We see, hear and touch.
What is Balloon Museum? It is a travelling museum. Its origins began in Rome, in 2020.
This is a product review of Pop Air exhibition, organised by Balloon Museum, a traveling museum, hosted by the respective country’s venue.
My normal exposure to balloons is the balloon sculpting, widely seen at parties, pop-up events, sales booths, retail stores and other celebrations.
I’m writing reviews of the exhibits.
These balloons are named Ginjos. They have large eyes and no mouth. They’re cute and this pair was placed at the entrance of the exhibition venue, to entice visitors to buy entry tickets.
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There’s a face in the foreground and another in the background. This art is invented using a mix of techniques like 3D mapping, hologram, light, software and hardware. I stood in front of the large screens and could see moving tiny bubbles, small bubbles and they changed to grow into larger circles. The digital art was moving.
The air inside the Airship balloons is blown through the metal pipe extension, to produce sounds. This whole hall is dedicated to the Airship Orchestra.
This is from a different angle of the Airship Orchestra.
The light that shines on the balloons may be heating them up and causes them to float together. Depending on the fans that are also blowing, the balloons may be blown apart, to disperse. The movements are gentle and slow, hence keeping to the theme of this installation, which is called Soft Hurricane.
The cylindrical blocks on the floor contain light bulbs or fans blowing streams of air. These act on the balloons. The photo above shows the hall bathed in pinkish-pastel purple light.
Then, the light changes to fiery orange-red.
Each balloon cloud maybe connected to a kinetic energy detection device. A person sits on the swing and uses their own potential energy to move the swing to and fro. It activates a change for the white cloud; turning on a series of colored lights for the cloud. The mechanisms are installed inside the balloon cloud. From outside, the swing looks like a simple swing decorated by a white cloud balloon at its top. When a visitor sits on the swing and swings, the white cloud shows off different colors.
This is a collaboration between Hypercosmo and Quiet Ensemble. The first party, Hypercosmo, is a concept of a macro-system, represented by the balloon clouds at the ceiling, and the sea of small bubbles. Some visitors come prepared, dressed in swimming costumes or an ensemble that represents a swimming costume. The thick, voluminous layer of small bubbles look like they can actually support the immersion of a human “swimmer”. Visitors interact with this installation to do play acting of swimming, diving and floating in the generous sea of small bubbles.
If you’ve seen the kids’ pool of small rubber balls, then you’ll understand the concept of this idea.
We can see a few people submerged in the pit/ pool of balloon bubbles.
Next, small and tiny soap bubbles are blown towards visitors as they enter this hall. The Quiet Storm is one of bubbles and not rain drops. This is an interesting take on the concept of storm.
Some bubbles look white while others look transparent.
The balloons are light and don’t harm people when they walk among them. Even when balloons collide against humans, no one is harmed.
The tall balloon pillars represent pillars forming the fence of a house. This installation is called Bau(ncy) Haus. I think it is a German word. The phonetics sound like Bouncy House in English language. You are encouraged to walk in-between the pillars, which will move and sway with vibrations in the air or ground. The light also changes colors, from blue to other colors.
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Get on a stationary bicycle and pedal. Your kinetic energy will be channeled to contraptions that will open an umbrella made of balloons.
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This is the umbrella made of balloons. A lighting system makes this umbrella shime with different colored lights. Here it is blue on the outer surface.
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Now it is pink on the outer surface and neon red on the inner.
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As the rider cycles, the umbrella fully opens:
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This photo shows the spinning wheels of the bicycle.
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This is a giant balloon sculpture named Silenus. The material is a very light weight nylon. This sculpture was modeled after a real man, and the proportions were then magnified. This giant balloon is lighted from within. Air is manipulated from inside this balloon, to make its arms move slowly. This photo shows Silenus’ arms raised. The next pic shows his arms lowered.
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This balloon sculpture was so large in dimensions that I could only get the entire body by standing at the head end or feet end. I used my phone cam. If you bring a wide angle camera, you can focus on the entire figure in one shot.
This is named ADA:
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As the balloon ADA is light, it remains suspended mid-air and its charcoal spikes touch the ceiling, explaining why the ceiling has the most charcoal markings.
Its wonderful that technology, a balloon, physics and air invented this balloon with a functiona.
A woman is seen touching ADA and trying to make it move to leave more charcoal marks on walls and ceiling. ADA is a self marking balloon apparatus.
ADA the balloon in action. You can see from the photo that the ceiling is blackened by markings from the floating and moving balloon.
As ADA floats all the time, the ceiling gets maximum contact with its charcoal spikes.
The following 3 photos are about the hall with the installation titled Glowing Ballet. This mass of balloons move in synchronised choreography. The center is a small machine made tornado, which twirls the small balloons around the vortex of the “tornado”. UV light is used to make the balloons glow in special color. Hence, its name is Glowing Ballet.
The Polygons
is an interactive hall. Visitors can move the balloon polygons, stack them, or arrange them into any desired structures. They are constructed anybody, and taken apart to be deconstructed, by other people. The 3D polygons are life size.
The installation is named “10 Agosto”. It comprises of two circles. The circle above is a dome of lights, in concentric circles. The lights come on in circles of increasing sizes or decreasing sizes. The circle below is a circle where swings are suspended from a frame that is a circle.
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The pic below is better framed. We can see two people sitting on their swings.
People sit on the swings, look up at the lights to imagine the stars twinkling in small constellations to big ones.
The Goofs are illuminated from within. They are silent observers for now. Maybe one day, their inventor may install robot like hardware and software, to make them interactive. The Goofs joined the Balloon Museum in 2023.
There’s a cafe selling drinks, popcorn and light snacks.
The best highlight of this final hall of the exhibition is the souvenir store. A large display of soft toy Ginjos of all their colors, Tee shirts, postcards, stationery, and a information book on Balloon Museum.
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Now, let’s talk about the meaning of balloon dreams.
Have you dreamed about flying in a hot air balloon? One night, I dreamed I was flying in a hot air balloon. Then I descended to ground level. For some reason, I got out of my basket. Suddenly, when I turned back to look at my hot air balloon, I saw it had flown away.
How to interpret balloon dreams in 2023
My dream interpretation is that I had lost my opportunity to use the hot air balloon because I was careless. Applying this warning to my real life, I had to think about my current situation at work and at home. How does this dream relate to my present circumstances? Have I lost an opportunity somewhere at work or at home?
If you have a similar dream about being abandoned by your mode of transport, you should reflect on how your dream relates to your present situation.
Dream of hot air balloon invading foreign air space
Do you ever dream of being on a flying hot air balloon and it floats out of control? What happened when it floated away and entered enemy air space? Would you be frightened for your life? You are inside the basket of this hot air balloon and have no method of communicating to the people on the ground. Your balloon is carrying you at a height of 60 000 feet above ground. You can hardly see anything on the ground. You are like an alien in the sky. You are all alone. Nobody knows whether you come in peace or harbor bad intentions.
You have a fear that you have lost control of your life. You are vaguely aware that your balloon has floated out of your country and you’re in enemy air space. You know it is protocol to shoot down unidentified flying objects (UFO). You are afraid to die. You’re still young. You’re not ready to die.
You try to recollect your circumstances leading to this situation. How did you get stuck in this hot air balloon? Do you know how to pilot this balloon? Are you worried? These are some of the questions going through your dream.
If you dream of floating in air using balloons and flying with them, you might be desiring to fly to a destination on the cheap. If you had money to blow on a plane ticket, you wouldn’t be considering balloons.
David Blaine, the magician and illusionist, is planning to float across the Hudson River, from New Jersey, to New York. He’s going to hold a bunch of balloons inflated with helium, to lift him up. This will be shown live on Blaine’s YouTube channel on August 31, 2020.
Good morning from Oswestry! Waking up to the sound of balloons this morning. Must be very chilly for them up in the sky this morning….. 🎈🌬☁️ pic.twitter.com/yOWssQ5oUD— Jane Bee (@JaneBea5) August 31, 2020
Meaning of dreaming of balloon –
The symbol of a sinking balloon foretells a bad situation/ event on the way.
Dreaming of balloons has several meanings, which depend on the position of the balloon. If the balloon is high up, it could mean you have lofty ambitions. If the balloon is at middle level, then it could mean that you are happy with being an average sort of person. If the balloon was at ground level, it could indicate you are at a low point in your life. This is not the worst; it is a popped balloon (burst one). The torn balloon has no chance of being salvaged and re-inflated again.
This means to stand out in a crowd. If you dream of yourself holding a red balloon, it means something will happen in waking life, that causes you to become outstanding in a crowd. Try to reflect on this dream interpretation and see if you can identify what the real life thing is.
Fiction below
The girl missed her mom so bad she decided to send a message. She tore a sheet of note paper from her dad’s Memo pad. “Dear Mommy, please come and see me. I miss you. Love, Jane.” She considered stuffing her note into an envelope but she didn’t have an address. She looked around and took a red balloon from yesterday’s party flavor. Its helium made it float. She folded her note into a tiny square, opened the balloon’s clip and stuffed it in. She’s going to send her note to Mommy via the Universe. She placed her trust in the great, mysterious power, to deliver her note. Now, to go to the highest point in the house to release her balloon. She climbed to the attic, opened its window and stepped out. She tread carefully for the tiles were still moist from rain. She raised her right hand which held her balloon, and looked at the sunrise. The glare of sunlight dazed her. She raised her left hand to her eyes. The shift of body weight took her by surprise. Suddenly she saw the grass and black color.
He had a dream. His daughter’s red balloon was losing its helium and almost lying on the ground. She called him and her voice was so loud and urgent that he was awakened. He went into her room but she wasn’t there. He went outside. He saw and fainted.