Dan Boland 01 Sep 05

At first, I thought you were talking about those ads that you can watch in the tunnel like you see pop up here and there in Chicago, but this is totally different. And neat! I just hope those suction cups are strong. =)

alil jumpy 01 Sep 05

If I saw some dude sticking a box on the side of a train, I would beat him down. He should put a sticker on it that says “Not a Bomb!” and wear a T-Shirt that says “Not a Terrorsist”. Then I would leave him a lone.

neato 01 Sep 05

The roots scene is really cool. How cool!

Stephen 01 Sep 05

The box looks suspicious, the visuals scary, and anywhere except berlin the thing would be stolen for warehouse raves. Still - a very neat idea and a lovely clean website.

DaleV 01 Sep 05

The art part of this is great. The reality is that I would also beat the crap outta someone and I can’t believe those people walked by without doing anything when they saw the box go zooming off. Some dipshit will have fun putting a bomb into a device just like this. Thanks for one more “how-to”.

I consider this unresponsible art (like street graffiti).

Ryan 01 Sep 05

Strapping a box to a subway car will get you shot in most places. What happened to la luche gegen extremism? Berlin is for me.

Word Police 01 Sep 05

unresponsible = no
irresponsible = yes

JohnO 01 Sep 05

I like the idea. It would have made my 6mos of commuting to NYC every day that much more bearable :)

Dick 01 Sep 05

If I saw that while riding the subway, I’d think I was having an acid flashback.

brian 01 Sep 05

i think the whole video is a fake. If you look at the last segment of fishes, there is a black out-line. Now, unless it is in colour and converted to black-n-white for the online video, there is a weird black/grey boarder around the fish which won’t be there because you can’t project ‘black light’.

Secondly, before he first puts the case onto the train, you see the underside which as no visible suction pads.

Finally, if you move frame-by-frame, you see he attaches the case below the window on the corner closest to the door, in the next frame the train is speeding away (blurred), but the case is NOT blurred and it is attached below the window near the corner away from the door.

So unless this is a composite of many takes, i think this whole thing is fake.

david 01 Sep 05

brian, nice catch.

For those curious, look at 0:47 in the video. Except in some sort of cartoon-reality that I doubt exists in Berlin (at least it didn’t when I was there), what you will see in that section of the video is impossible.

Nevertheless, it’s an excellent idea and an entertaining video. It’s a shame that you can’t do something creative and harmless like that without getting arrested.

Dave Simon 01 Sep 05

OK, same area, around 0:47-0:48 -

There is a frame where between putting the case on the subway and calling on the cell phone where the bald guy just disappears.

Now that’s incredible, Fran Tarkenton!

DaleV 01 Sep 05

Word Police: Duh. Thanks.

And interesting about the fake theory . . . . would explain why people just look at him funny instead of taking action!

pigmy 01 Sep 05

You can question its legitimacy but not its creativity - it is oozing with it, imo.

But me, i’ll catch the next train anyway, thanks =)

Rich 01 Sep 05

Great marketing video for a concept. These guys should be promoting this idea to transit authorities all over the world. It would open up revenue streams for them, and advertising venues for companies. Shit, if they don’t do it, I might.

Dustin J. Mitchell 01 Sep 05

Why have I heard so little about the similar project in Chicago (on the blue line, just before pulling into Clark/Lake, I believe)? That’s even real..

Bogie 03 Sep 05

There are a few problems I can foresee with a commercial version of this system. In order to view the animation from inside the train, you’d either need a very bright data projector in the box, or you’d need to dim the internal lighting of the train compartment. Also, the projection point would need to be at the same level as the windows (and not mounted below them) so that there wasn’t any distortion in the projection (out of focus and wider at the top than at the bottom etc).

Craig Beck 03 Sep 05

As to the distortion factor… I’ve *never* seen a projector positioned ideally (i.e. perpendiclarly to the view surface) in any real world use. the nice thing is they all have some sort of correction (keystone correction I belive) so you set them up with counteracting distortion — wider at the end closer to the projector. Besides the technique used — light animation on black background — would not suffer so much from an imperfect setup as you don’t have nice square edges to compare thei out-of-true-ness.

Dallas Pool 04 Sep 05

Guy-*sticks case on train*
Guard - BOMB!!! *BLAM*
Guy dies.
ME- SHARK!
Guard - *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*

Dag Sunde 08 Sep 05

What makes me sad is that peoples first reaction is: “beat the crap out of him”, “irresponsible”, “BOMB”…

The terrorists of the world have surely won already. Ordinary people’s first reaction is violence and fear, instead of marvelling at the ingenuity of the idea.

Thank god i live in a country where my kids walk to school unprotected every day, and where i can leave my frontdoor open and the key in the car.