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Nike's giant World Cup balls up
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 5 July 2010, 11:32 Permalink Comments (23)
How (and why) Leicester-based Ratcliffe Fowler Design helped Nike create a sculpture out of 5,500 footballs in a South African shopping centre
Ball Man stands 20 metres high in the Carlton Mall Atrium in Johannesburg. He is the centrepiece of a Nike installation promoting the firm's kits and boots for the World Cup. He is also the result of over a year's work by Ratcliffe Fowler and Nike's Global Creative Football team.
The sculpture uses 5,500 'Brasilian Skill Balls" – smaller, heavier versions of regular footballs used to practice skills with – and is, roughly, based on Carlos Tevez. The balls are held together using 10km of cable with the whole thing weighing in at 4.75 tons.
These early prototype shots show a miniature version of the sculpture constructed in the studio
In order to make sure the whole thing worked, says Ratcliffe Fowler's Richard Liverman, the studio set up a series of tests in the somewhat less glamorous surroundings of a Rotherham power station. There they tested the structure against accidental impacts and other eventualities that might result in problems.
The sculpture is up until the end of the tournament, after which there are plans to give the balls to local schoolchildren.
23 Comments
thats ace!!!
2010-07-05 12:25:14
Work by Greyworld in 2004:
http://greyworld.org/archives/31
I'm not saying they're the only people who can make sculptures of balls, just saying there's a precedent.
2010-07-05 12:38:24
WOW.
2010-07-05 12:54:55
wow
2010-07-05 12:58:55
Looks remarkably like the same concept Stella McCartney used in her sculpture "Lucky Spot" http://www.visitnorthumberland.com/site/attractions/english-heritage-sites/english-heritage-highlights
2010-07-05 13:09:42
Let's make a footballer out of footballs! Love it!
It doesn't bother me that something similar has done before. I'd love to see it in real life to get the full scale and impact.
Good work from my home town.
2010-07-05 13:37:45
I wonder what value this contract was worth? A year in the making... dummy runs in power stations... all for a load of balls... Still, looks impressive enough for the 2 minutes it will be up!
2010-07-05 14:42:30
Cool!
now if only they could get it to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF0viABzaBk
2010-07-05 14:56:57
Waow!
Shame they didnt use these balls during the games. The Adidas ball has been a right balls-up.
2010-07-05 15:01:05
It would be interesting to see the domino effect in action on this: an almighty Newton's Cradle?
2010-07-05 15:58:43
How are the balls connected? Cant work it out - i can see they are on wires but not how the stage in position- Grant
2010-07-05 16:55:36
Really cool, good to see Nike pushing things out there as always.
2010-07-05 21:54:33
Love the scale and overall simplicity of the idea.
In contrast (perhaps) - http://tinyurl.com/3aasfz8
2010-07-06 00:58:44
Wow, looks amazing, and of such scale. Must have taken an age to plan this...
2010-07-06 10:16:38
some more details on the process would be nice - who was involved totally? Did they get engineers of some sort invovled to calculate the load need to hold the sculpture? The logisitc of something like this interests me just as much as the final piece - as a student somehting like seems impossible to do - must have cost a fortune.
2010-07-06 10:22:25
Must have been inspired by BMW's Kinetic Sculpture in Munich. Great work though!
2010-07-06 12:48:44
Stunning! I like the improved shape to that of the prototype.
Glad they are thinking of giving the footballs away to school children : )
2010-07-06 12:54:18
Cornelia Parker has got a lot to answer for.......
2010-07-06 13:17:11
Well done Crofty!!!
2010-07-06 16:15:03
Another great ambush marketing stunt from Nike. The World Cup wouldn't be the same without it!
2010-07-07 13:59:05
Amazing stuff!
2010-07-11 09:59:52
Fantastic idea.
2010-07-14 10:06:23
How cool, reminds me of a Heineken Xmas tree that I saw in Vietnam made out of it's green bottles, looked amazing when lit up at night, wish I took a photo to share.
2010-07-20 17:39:58
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