Monday, July 16, 2007

A Mammoth of an Elephant

Given that I'm a sucker for creatures of gargantuan proportions especially in mythological realms related to time travel, it's no biggie that I absolutely love this piece of work - The Sultan's Elephant. Amazing effort and coordination by the artists. You gotta watch this.

The Sultan's Elephant is a show created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company, involving a huge moving mechanical elephant and other associated public art installations. In French it is called La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps (literally, "Visit From The Sultan Of The Indies On His Time-Traveling Elephant").

The elephant is made mostly of wood, and is operated by over ten puppeteers using a mixture of hydraulics and motors. It weighs 42 tons, as much as 7 African elephants. A replica of the elephant was built in Nantes (France) in 2007, as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes permanent exhibition.

Courtesy Wiki.

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