G-HEAD, a flying piece of art.

Posted Maart 29th, 2009 by Ike

Peter Hellbom, a Swedish artist, had a dream…to create a head sculpture of air. The G-HEAD, a new project of IkeAir. A flying piece of art. (English)

Peter Hellbom, a Swedish artist mainly working with head sculptures made of different material, water (ice), lead, aluminum, stainless steel, had a dream…to create a head sculpture of air. Because he wanted to find out how the different kind of scales of an object influence the thinking of a human being. In 1981 he received an artistic money award to fulfill that dream of a flying head balloon.

Peter Hellbom contacted all balloon manufacturers in the world including Thunder & Colt/UK and they all said it was impossible to built such a balloon with concave shape. Goran Alme, master of engineering at Thunder & Colt/UK, finally helped Peter after he built a 3D-model of plexiglas-sheets, representing the panels between the inner and outer balloon. On each plexiglas-sheet Peter have drawn the curve of both balloons. With that model Coran was finally convince that it was possible to build such a balloon.

Goran had a contact at the SAS-factory (SAS-Lintaverken) where they repair jet-turbin engines. In the factory was a computer connected to a big 3D-scanner, which could measure with an accuracy of one thousand of a milimeter. Peter made a 90 cm high 3D-model which was scanned. With the scan results, Peter was able to cut out and stamped an unique number at every panel. The flying head became the first computer-designed balloon. Due to the early development in building special shape balloons and the complexity of the shape itself, the budget for the flying head balloon exceeded all calculations. After the built of the flying head balloon Peter had to work for Thunder & Colt in order to make his last payment possible. He painted Sheik portraits at balloon envelopes ordered by Sheiks from the Middle East. The final end result of the flying head balloon is astonishing and became instantly an icon. Peter Hellbom fulfilled his dream and created a flying piece of art.