The lawine torrèn artist network seemed to spare nothing in their ode to a supersonic magnetic train called Baby Jet. The centerpiece of the Linzer Klangwolke was an espionage-type thriller revolving around the development of this train and those who would want to stop it from becoming a reality.
The thriller is fictional, but the development is quite real with the ÖBB (Austrian Federal Railways), the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the Linz Center of Mechatronics all working together to make this become a reality. Baby Jet is to be an underground magnet (maglev) train that could exceed Mach 1 while traveling through a vacuum tunnel. A network of tubes with a diameter of less than three meters would link Europe’s cities like a subway system connects a city’s neighborhoods. Each tiny train (called a nacelle) would resemble a bullet and would need no engineer to drive it. It would shoot through a vacuumized tube at speeds of 1200 km/h with practically no friction or wind resistance. Trains would run every two minutes with a revolver system at downtown terminals feeding each nacelle into the system. Linz to Wien would take 9 minutes. München to Berlin: 26 minutes.
Here are a couple of video excerpts – better than what I recorded from this hour-long event. Aside from the general overwhelming spectacle of it, I really was impressed by the helicopter pilots and their ability to manoeuvre while gently placing a person on the end of a long rope safely on a flat surface – oh! and the fireworks shooting out of the copters as well! The fast figure-eights of the illuminated jet skis were pretty incredible too. All of these spectacular events would take your mind off the truly awful 80’s-style arena rock/sensitive faux-opera that was coming from the speakers. It makes you wonder why the music wasn’t at least 21st Century. There’s no sound on either video.
(thanks to aquauit)
(thanks to supermum1001)