What’s That Big Inflated Crazy Thing At Summerfest?
Behold 'Astral Relics of the Northwoods.' You can walk through it.
“Astral Relics of the Northwoods” by FuzzPop Workship. Photo taken Jne 17 by Graham Kilmer.
What is that big, multi-colored conglomeration at Summerfest that looks like a group of massive people-like creatures in a state of embrace?
It is an immersive art experience called “Astral Relics of the Northwoods” and was created by FuzzPop Workshop, a local experimental art studio. It’s composed of roughly 1,000 yards of fabric. Each towering figure is made from about 250 individual pieces of cloth sewn together, just right, so that when filled with air they stand up in supernatural form. Six thousand pounds of concrete hold the figures to the ground.
“It’s inspired by the North Woods. We’ve drawn on the tree patterns and the Aurora Borealis, and trying to bring that together in this cosmic gathering of these primordial spirits,” said Daniel Murray, founder and creative director of Fuzz Pop.
Last year, FuzzPop created “Yield” for Summerfest. It was an immersive installation playing with sound and light to create a “cosmic cornfield” — like a local farm was irradiated and aliens visited.
“Astral Relics” also includes sounds and music and a smoke machine to create an experiential piece that visitors can walk through and under. They can even make their own sounds and music pressing buttons around the steaming center of the “cosmic drum circle,” Murray said.
FuzzPop spends a lot of time on these installations: it took nearly nine months to create “Astral Relics,” including thousands of hours of design and assembly. The patterns on the fabric were created by John Kowalczyk who variously painted and photographed the images, digitizing and manipulating them to create the celestial melange.
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