Suburban Assault

This past March, I took a trip down to Austin for the SXSW Interactive Conference. While down there, we visited the Frog Design welcome party that was open to all conference attendees. Expecting just another networking social hour, my expectations for the event were pretty low. I couldn’t have been more wrong – WHAT A SPECTACULAR EVENT!

There were too many great things happening at the event to post this time. However, the one thing that stood out the most was a series of cool bike / sculpture / performance art pieces rolling throughout the party grounds. They called themselves the Austin Bike Zoo. These elegantly designed creatures with all sorts of moving parts and glowing bodies, gracefully made their way through the crowd, giving us a spectacle we would never forget.

According to their site, they call themselves “Human Powered Puppetry” with a mission “…to inspire the Austin community with bicycles and other alternative forms of transportation by creating unique human powered vehicles, bicycle-based theatrical performances and educational programs for youth.” Well, I was more than inspired to see these “puppets” perform throughout the night.

To see some pics, you can check them out in my flickr set. Sorry there aren’t more shots, but it was dark and the lighting was bad to take shots of moving art.

So, if you are planning a trip to Austin, Texas, be sure to check out the Austin Bike Zoo site, to see if they have anything scheduled. They’re something you’ve got to see.