Testing flying hair dryers at the Drill Hall, Edinburgh

11th September, 2022

The Drill Hall in Leith, Edinburgh provided the necessary height to test various prototypes of the flying hair dryer artwork. It needed at least 7m for the bin bag version.

3 versions were tested today with different materials as understanding the physics is really important to know how much lift each design gives. The materials are all of different weights and this greatly affects whether the work will fly. The objective is to get just enough lift to enable the hair dryer to fly, too much lift will either tear the balloon, or simply un-plug the hair dryer.

The foil version doesn't fly (as yet), it is almost neutrally buoyant and is filmed bouncing after I lifted it off the ground slightly. By adding 2 more metres of material should allow this version to fly.

This artwork began with George when I was in my first year of my MA at the Royal College of Art, that work was shown in my interim show to a small audience. Since that time a few different flying, hot air artworks have been experimented with, particularly during a residency at Platform, but not fully realised as artworks.

I'm aiming to develop this work over the next few weeks during my residency in Changwon, South Korea for the Changwon Sculpture Biennale.

bin bag flying hair dryer
dust sheet flying hair dryer
foil flying hair dryer