Comments on: Kingdom of the Spiders

Kingdom of the Spiders

MrMustard — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:50:52 -0800

La Machine - the troop who brought The Sultan's Elephant to London (previously) - are at it again. This time, it's a gigantic, mechanical spider in Liverpool. YouTube. flickr.

By: DU

DU — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:07:24 -0800

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:19:18 -0800

The little girl on The Sultan's Elephant was one of the coolest things I've seen in large-scale art. Makes the Rose Bowl floats look lame in comparison.

By: aramaic

aramaic — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:28:32 -0800

I hate these people so much. Why? Because I'm so jealous I can barely stand up (bursts into tears).

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:38:56 -0800

Heeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeee.

By: adamms222

adamms222 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:42:51 -0800

Sponsored by the Tolkein Society, are they?

By: adamms222

adamms222 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:43:09 -0800

Tolkien, rather.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:47:23 -0800

And here I was, expecting a YouTube of how many babies you could fit into a Volkswagen.

By: Kloryne

Kloryne — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:15:43 -0800

I was just thinking about these guys! I'm so glad to see something new. I only wish I could see it live instead of on YouTube.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:31:39 -0800

Meh. I got off the Virgin Pendolino from London at about 10.00pm last night, and as I came out of Lime Street Station, there's a small crowd gawking and taking photograps of this banal, spotlit spider, stuck to the side of a building. Unless that damn thing rampages through the city centre, trampling our bagheads and raping our scallies, I'm going to remain unimpressed. The world's biggest LED screen on the other side of the road, in contrast, was a glorious site to behold. Advertisements that were bigger and sharper than an IMAX cinema screen!

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:34:04 -0800

Alternatively, a whole infestation of them, rampaging through the city centre shops might also be cool.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:36:12 -0800

Whoa, that is one scary-gnarly spider. Wish I could see it moving. Had to get a mechanical spider moving fix.

By: m0nm0n

m0nm0n — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:46:36 -0800

Best use of the "ohmygodthatsafuckingenormousspider" tag ever.

By: Happy Dave

Happy Dave — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:59:19 -0800

Gonna be some freaked out Scouse clubbers. A giant spider on the side of an office building at 1 in the morning - eek!

By: adamms222

adamms222 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:00:14 -0800

nickyskye - all you have to do is click your heels 3 times and say "Selleck, Selleck!"

By: mhum

mhum — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:20:25 -0800

Somewhere, Jon Peters is smiling. For those who find the video tl;dw, a summary appears in the Superman Lives section of Jon Peters' wikipedia page

By: djstig

djstig — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:09:49 -0800

Bah! I was going to use this as my first proper post, and some one has got there instead. I have particularly disliked most of the Capital of Culture appropriation of stuff that occurs generally in Liverpool, but this has made me really excited. I'm off into town tomorrow to watch it wake up and do stuff. I'm also glad that there is some kind of crazy back story involved that is basically rubbish, but that people are allowing themselves to accept as fact. This video explains further.

By: MrMustard

MrMustard — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:38:02 -0800

Sorry to steal your thunder djstig. If it's any consolation, I'm extraordinarily jealous that you're going to get to see this thing in action.

By: Kid Charlemagne

Kid Charlemagne — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:31:13 -0800

Unless that damn thing rampages through the city centre Did you look carefully at that thing? There's enough hardware run though that things that I will be surprised if it doesn't at least do that. And here I was looking at this and this for my inspiration for this year's addition to the Halloween decor.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:32:40 -0800

Holy shit!

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:55:34 -0800

Did you look carefully at that thing? Actually, I didn't. Given how awesome the elephant was, I just felt short-changed, thinking we'd just got a boring decoration on the side of a building. And as everything else about the Capital of Culture thing has been shit, I naturally assumed that this would be shit too. Since then, my kids assure me that it can not only rampage on the streets, but it can also climb buildings as well. I don't know how they know this. One daughter believes it may even lay eggs and have babies. Perhaps I'll go take a look tomorrow as well. I'll be the aging scally in the Goretex Berghaus, djstig. Keep your eyes out for me -- though I'm not sure how you'll pick me out from the thousands of other aging scals wearing Berghaus.

By: ciderwoman

ciderwoman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:29:44 -0800

It's not as good as our elephant was.

By: Phantomx

Phantomx — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:16:43 -0800

I wish this post would have been after it wakes up so that I wouldn't have to remember to go back and watch videos, and so people didn't have the opportunity to snark before everything happened.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:20:08 -0800

During phase II of the installation, La Machine will begin feeding on squatters in the abandoned building it is climbing. I'd like to merge the stuff these guys are doing with Survival Research Labs.

By: Phanx

Phanx — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:38:14 -0800

It's not as good as our elephant was. Though to be pedantic, the elephant was actually from Nantes, where the show was first performed, not made specifically for London.

By: emperor.seamus

emperor.seamus — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:45:04 -0800

It's not as good as our elephant was. Madness! Giant spider is totally better than giant elephant! I mean, ALL elephants are pretty big, so you just happened to get a SLIGHTLY more big one trundling around your poxy little suburb. Now a giant Spider? There's something special for you! Standing giant over all her teeny tiny spider friends, standing giant over all her average sized enemies, standing giant over your elephant. Spider wins my friend, spider wins.

By: notashroom

notashroom — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:29:43 -0800

Now if we can just get Will Smith and a film crew to London, we could have a sequel on our hands. Wild, Wild West End, anyone?

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:20:53 -0800

I really, really, REALLY want that spider.