A Grand Story
special thanks to : Dakota Hill, Renata Galan, Kalpa Semasinghe
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Fall 2018
Studio Lange
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located: Downtown Los Angeles
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It was a typical Sunday morning on Grand Avenue. The air was chilly but the sun was warm. There were people walking along the street. Tourists were surrounding the Broad and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Cars were speeding along the scene. And yet this day was different. Balloons rose from the ground and appeared on the Avenue. They were never seen before. They bounced along, glistening and shimmering in the sun with the wind. There were many of them, all jumbled together and twirling in the air. They seemed to float on their own.
The balloons had appeared suddenly that morning. They floated along the middle of the street. They moved curiously, appearing and disappearing. At times they were within full view but other times you would only catch a flash of them. They were bright and shiny as the light was reflected from it’s silvery surfaces.
People’s eyes were diverted to the middle of the street. The balloons created reactions from those who moved past the balloons on their routes. People stopped as they saw this phenomenon. They stared, smiled, and were drawn to discover where these balloons were coming from. Little did they know as they began to look they were becoming a part of a story.
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Since there were so many of these balloons, there were many different images at different angles. The images on the balloon surfaces were distorted with the curving and crinkly surfaces of the material. If you came close enough you might even see yourself in the balloons.
If you approached the balloons you would see that they were coming from somewhere down below. The lines connected to the balloons swept below the street itself. Before you could reach the balloons you were blocked by a gate that surrounded the hole from which the balloons came from. As your eyes followed the white lines, another street was revealed below. The lines were connected to a girl dressed all in black.
From below the girl looked curiously above. She was not aware of what was above her. She only saw through the hole in the tunnel. She saw the sky and caught glimpses of the building above. She did not see the movement happening above. The cars and the people were hidden from her. She slowly let the balloons slip through her fingers. They tugged her as the wind gave them strength. She weaved in and out of the lanes as cars came and went. She let the balloons pull her in the tunnel so they would be able to rise.
As the girl disappeared below she became a new sight. The people down below found her. They followed her movements as the balloons danced behind her. The security guards at their posts watched her curiously. The traffic below slowed beside her. The cars and their occupants smiled and waved to her as they passed by. She walked further into the tunnel pulling the balloons out of sight from those above.
