Joyless commutes – the Sisyphean condition of the modern middle class – will for one day become a thing of the past and the imminent future for the residents of Bristol on May 4th, 2014, when artist Luke Jerram installs a 90m water slide along the city’s main thoroughfare for reasons of “playfully responding to the urban landscape” and pure unadulterated joy.
An interactive installation artist whose body of work also includes the ‘Play Me I’m Yours’ pianos situated throughout London which have since toured every Australian capital city, Jerram has completed successful test trials of the slide (basic premise: plastic and water; run and slide) and says he “likes the way participants have a look of pleasure and fear in their eyes. They seem to slide in and out of control with their body and forces of gravity. Personally, I found the little adrenalin rush you get at the end, quite addictive.”
The project has surpassed the half-way mark on its crowd-funding page, and a flight from Sydney to Bristol will set you back around $2,100. The cost of 90m of untempered adrenalin in your otherwise staid commute through from the cradle to the grave: priceless.
Photo: artist’s impressions, via Luke Jerram; H/T PSFK
