The New Museums IDEAS CITY street festival showcased local pickles, musical fruit and some pretty designy sculpture stuff. all together it was a pretty cool festival. PLOTS definitely took the cake with its crowdsource balloon construction and aerial photography.

The festivities kicked off on Rivington between Bowery and Christie. 12in party balloons got filled as festival goers flooded the street. (12) 10ft long strings, with key rings on either end, were put in the hands of people as they passed by; other pedestrians were handed balloons and briefly taught how to tie slip knots. Each of the (12) 10ft long strings was fastened with 10 balloons and then connected to each other via the key rings (tops to tops and bottoms to bottoms); this resulted in a balloon orb, more resembling a bundle.

This style of construction, having a lot of very small and simple steps, increases access as well as participation in a project that at its core is concerned with decentralization.

The launch, the first launch, occurred at Rivington and Bowery. The balloon got maybe 100 feet up; however, we were using the three tether method and one of the tethers was slacking too much and got caught on a bus. We cut that line and immediately launched again...

The launch, the second launch, occurred on Bowery and Stanton. The balloon got way high immediately. I went from 200ish feet on bowery and houston to 1,000 + feet at astor place.

The balloon eventually became wrapped around a water tower at astor place and a team had to get up on the roof to free it.

PREVIEW THE MAP HERE

EDIT MAP ON MAP KNITTER HERE

FIND ALL IMAGES HERE

Could not have done this without the help of Jack Are, Jared Rodriguez, Alyssa Rapp, Katie Hoszowskyj, and Jo??l Schillio.