The Backstory of the Massive Astronaut Drifting Through Coachella Festival This Year

The creators of the Coachella Astronaut drifting through this year's music festival reveal the inspiration behind the installation.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Perhaps the only thing at Coachella to receive more hype than Kid Cudi's crop top, Pharrell and Outkast's performances, or JayZ and Beyoncé's surprise appearances is the giant astronaut drifting through the festival grounds.

Escape Velocity, better known as #CoachellaAstronaut, follows in the foot steps of last year's legendary #CoachellaSnail, both of which were created by the guys at Poetic Kinetics Inc., known for their large-scale installations. Except this year, the art collective decided to go even bigger, making their latest art piece massive. The thing is 36-foot tall, 57-foot long, and 40-foot wide, to be exact. It sits on a forklift that wanders through the crowds as festival-goers jam out to their favorite artists, and it's large enough to be in the Macy's Day Parade, Poetic Kinetic Inc.'s Tyler Hanson points out. "But those are all inflatables. This thing is a massive machine, and an art piece in and of itself," he said. 

Indeed, Escape Velocity is truly a work of art, with its base being a variable-reach forklift and its body components constructed from steel tubing, chicken wire, and pin rods. It even conjures up memories of KAWS' redesigned MTV Moonman from last year.

“Coachella is really unique. They’re one of the largest budgets of large-scale art in the world, at a festival or anything else. They have always been commissioning awesome artists to build one-of-a-kind, unique installations," Hanson said. "It’s definitely art-for-art’s-sake. It’s for the kids.”

Those interested in having a giant astronaut installation for their homes will be pleased to know that #CoachellaAstronaut will be sold off at the end of this year's music festival. Click through to see more pictures of the monumental installation.

[via FastCompany]

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