Panamarenko

2004

Object, 130 x 100 x 650 cm.
Materials:

Collection: Collection Galerie Jamar, Antwerp.

The fact that Panamarenko at that time lived outside the city and closer to the natural world, is something that greatly influenced this work.  The sculpture consists of a flyer attached to a winged construction with a span of some six and a half meters.

'Yes, its birth was here in the meadows of Michelbeke.  You could run quite a long ways in that meadow, and so it's easy to take-off.  With those wings, you just couldn't do it in the city.  You'd need a backpack motor for vertical ascent...' - Panamarenko

The device's title refers to the film of the same name from 1985, where there's a character that dreams of flying with just this sort of folding wings.  The first drawing of the design had the title Brazil Ornitopter, indicating bird-flight.  The word 'ornitopter' is  composed from the Greek 'ornis' (bird) and 'pteron' (wing).

The device is worn by a mannequin wearing an officer's uniform from the American Civil War.  Panamarenko made the figure by first making a wooden skeleton, with a head from cement that he carves to his own image.  A gray coat is impregnated with epoxy and then painted dark blue.

That gray didn't stand out well against the translucent plastic of the wings.  It was much better in blue... The wing made of polyethylene film is fixed to a framework of aluminum tubes, and this by means of four pivot-points that can fold in and out.  On the wings' fold-line, Panamarenko has glued a few bands of tape, to so enhance the fold of the pre-formed shape...

The pilot can take-off as soon as he attains a speed of 40 km. per hour.  To help him reach this, he is provided with a powerful electro-motor on his back, pushing him forwards with a force of 12 kg.

This way you can get going with folded-in wings.  With a constant push of 12 kg. at your back, when the moment's right you have to deploy the wings.  Then they start to lift, and... HOP!  You're off!  I reckon you can have take-off after a hundred meters.

(source: Hans Willemse andPaul Morrens, in: 'Copyright Panamarenko', 2005)