Okay...You start with some fairly inexpensive weatherballoons. You put an uninflated weather balloon inside a spherical outer covering that zips or velcro's together along a seam. This is a large - about 8 feet in diameter - eyeball. Okay, now fill the weatherballoon inside the large eyeball with helium. Before you get the thing too full, attach a cord to the mid point, front and back, right and left side. These cords will both tether the giant eyeball and allow you to point the eyes in one or another direction. You normally would have two of them, side by side. They'd be reall attention getters for car dealer's lots, etc. As you might imagine, you want to have good control over the eyeballs as far as how high they are and where they are looking. This calls for a sorta reverse puppeteer's device. I have drawings of it if you'd like to see 'em. A programmable system is possible. Oh, one more thing - You could make 'em really memorable if you put lights in 'em. Can you imagine two very large glowing eyeballs in the air? Cooool. Okay, Bye.
-- gorath, Oct 02 2003

Balloon Eyes http://thevillager....llager_445/eyes.jpg
[Amos Kito, Oct 17 2004, last modified May 07 2013]

Suggested title: "Giant Glowing Eyes"

I found a couple of [links] to eyeball balloons, but they're not as fancy as you described. It does sound like it would be creepy!

// put lights in 'em //
These things are starting to have some weight. You can hang them from a larger balloon, if necessary.
-- Amos Kito, Oct 02 2003


I appreciate the idea about hanging the eyeballs from larger balloons, but for me that would make things too complicated. It might necessitate radio control of the eyeball steering mechanism up in the larger baloon(s). Batteries, storms, wind concerns. I'll pass. I can see where the larger lifting balloons could serve to look like eyebrows, but that just isn't the way I'd want to go. Again, too complex.
-- gorath, Oct 04 2003


Attach cameras to them and display what it sees on a large outdoor screen.
-- painperdu, Jul 19 2011


I saw these at a David Bowie concert about 15 years ago.

Seriously. I'm actually not kidding, for once.
-- Alterother, Jul 21 2011


You are so kidding...which tour?
-- normzone, Jul 21 2011


I'm Afraid of Americans (that was the release, anyway, if not the tour name), in Boston. We thought they were giant globes painted like eyeballs, upon which were being projected video of people's faces (Bowie's kids, I later learned), but midway through the show Bowie grabbed them and tossed them into the crowd. They were also sporadically lit from the inside by green and white strobes that continued to flash as they bounced around. They were about 8' in dia. and contained just enough helium to make them act like giant beach balls instead of flattening you when they came down.

[added later: the show was Sep 30th, 1997, at the Orpheum. I found a YouTube clip of a different show on the same tour, but it didn't feature any giant inflatable eyeballs, so in the interest of relevance, I didn't link to it. You'll thank me later.]
-- Alterother, Jul 21 2011



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