“Warmth, Giant Black Toobs” by (Seattle artist) Susan Robb

The above video was taken on the Discovery Green in Houston. Part of an outdoor four-part summer exhibition, entitled Lighter than Air, “Toobs” was apparently first displayed in Seattle in 2007. Where was I?! This looks so neat.

The toobs are made of black polypropylene garbage bags, 50 feet tall, and filled with air. As they are warmed by the sun and moved by the wind, the tubes rise and fall, moving like hairs or organic wormy things.

“Because the air inside the ‘toobs’ is hotter than the air outside, the tubes soar, bump into each other, recoil, faint dead away and climb into the sky again,” wrote Regina Hackett back in 07 for the P-I.

Damn neat.