It’s an art thing, but quite a fun one. A red double-decker bus is doing muscular push-ups outside the Business Design Centre (map link) in Islington.
The venue has been taken over by the Czech Republic’s Olympics team and they also commissioned Czech artist, David Cerny to come up with something suitably London and fitness related.
Cerny bought the bus — which was built in 1957 — from an owner in the Netherlands, attached two huge arms, an electrical engine and a lot of wiring and suspension tools to make it into a piece of art named “London Boosted”.
It rises up and down a few times grunting and panting as it does so, then quite sensibly rests for a couple of minutes before repeating the exercise again.
There is a video animation in the windows, which erm, meant nothing to me whatsoever. I guess they had to cover the windows to hide the mechanics inside – so put a video display thing on the blacked out windows.
The backside has also been sculpted as well, in part to allow the vehicle to be elevated, but also probably because its art.
I quite like it though – it’s fun and playful and not at all difficult to work out what it means. No need for “wanky art speak” to explain it. It’s a big red bus doing push-ups. What more do you need to know?
A video I took of it yesterday evening. It will remain there, doing press-ups all the way through to the 12th August.
I have to say I think this is brillinat. The only shame is that once again a non-London bus has been portrayed as a native of the Capital…
It also has two huge arms, an arse and pushes itself up in the air – I don’t think technical accuracy is necessary.
In what way brillinat? Looks like a London bus ! A waste. Not Art !
You mean not all London buses have huge buttocks?!
If it helps, apparently Bristol Lodekkas – of which this is one – did sometimes make their way in to the capital in the fleets of neighbouring operators Thames Valley and Eastern National. But never would they have been red.
Not that it really matters… but it’s an ex-Isle of Wight “Southern Vectis” bus. I travelled on those as a kid. You can just see the reg. plate “DL”, that’s IoW. The “buttocks” were a bit more pert in those days. Well, it’s quite hilly over there!
There is a video animation in the windows, which erm, meant nothing to me whatsoever.
It’s a giant tank of liquid, sloshing slowly back and forth as the bus rises and falls. Note in particular how the top level (the surface) stays roughly parallel with the ground.
Given the number of old routemasters knocking about in Europe, I’m surprised they couldn’t find one somewhere to give it the ‘robotic’ treatment. Having visited ‘London Booster’ it’s a bit disturbing – there’s a uneasy ‘Alice In Wonderland’ quality about it
I have to say it looks a tad creepy and barmy. It may have stepped out of something Lewis Carroll or Stephen King wrote. Still, it’s a crowd-drawer.
This is pretty awesome.