Red Bull Stratos Jump - Man falls from 120,000 ft

Felix Baumgartner

So recently I've been following something I think all of us need to hear about.

Austrian born professional skydiver and BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner (left) will attempt to break the record for the highest (and definitely the most dangerous) sky dive in history. He'll be jumping from 120,000ft above sea level. That's almost 4 times higher than a Boeing 747 cruises at.

Did that sink in yet? OK. Good. Let's continue...


The jump has been in the work for the last few years, but it's not sponsored by NASA. Hell, it's not even sponsored by the government. It's sponsored entirely by, of all things...Redbull. Who else would put up their money for something this awesome and this insane?

So, some of the specs regarding the jump, so that everyone has an understanding of exactly how crazy and how amazing this attempt at a record will be if, God willing, Felix survives.

Here's some details: He will fly up in a helium balloon inside of a pod like capsule where he will make his ascent to the predetermined 120,000 ft, stop ascending, step out of the capsule and jump. Sounds easy right? OK. Let's review:

-He will be wearing a specially designed pressurized suit where he will be breathing 100% oxygen. Let's understand something about breathing pure oxygen. It takes getting used to. What we breathe on land isn't pure oxygen, but Felix will need it to survive in the stratosphere. But even this isn't safe. In a pressurized chamber like his suit, any petroleum based product, which could be sparked by something as basic as static, could set him ablaze. Hair gel, chapstick, lotions, you name it, he can't have it on inside the suit or it might just burst into flames during free fall. Killing him.

-At this high up, he's susceptible to what's called Ebullism: This is when bodily fluids turn into gas due to lowered altitude pressure. At 63,000ft above sea level, also known as Armstrong's Line, the boiling temperature for water drops to 98.6º degrees Fahrenheit. This means that if the pressure in his suit drops from his regulated 3.5 psn, he will literally swell like a balloon in his own suit and quite possibly, pop. Also killing him.

Diagram of the capsule Felix will exit and jump from

-There is no air resistance at this height. So, when Felix jumps he will be met with nothing. Falling through this nothing means he will meet no air resistance and continue to speed up. Free fall speed is 3.4 m/s squared (or about 200mph) aka terminal velocity. This won't happen for the first 30-35 seconds of Felix's free fall. He is expected to reach speeds of up to 700+ mph and be the first human being to break the sound barrier. That's MACH-1. This is also suggestive, because at the altitude he'll be traveling at, sound travels slower than at sea level, but nonetheless, he will free fall and accelerate to be the fastest human being without the propulsion of a craft. What will happen when he hits our air pressure at this speed is also in question. Which leads to the next part of this...

-The jump itself. Regular sky diving allows for avid skydivers and BASE jumpers to maneuver through the air because of the air pressure they can "swim" through. Felix will have NO CONTROL OF HIS BODY for the first part of the fall. If he jumps with too much pressure moving forward, he may go into a top spin.  At 120 rpm, a human being, even a trained astronaut for example, will possibly knock themselves out unconscious. At 145 rpm, as per tests done on monkeys (unfortunately) the brain stem separates from the spinal column. Most likely killing him.

Felix atop the hand of O Cristo Redentor  in Sao Paulo, Brazil

So, what's the deal with this jump? It's both record breaking and scientific. Back in 1960 a guy named Joseph Rittinger jumped from a similar capsule from 102,800ft. (about 3 miles shy of where Felix plans on making his jump) during what was called the Excelsior Program. He survived, despite suffering slight Ebullism to his right hand when a pressure valve in his suit malfunctioned and allowed the pressure in his hand to drop. Had it not been for his suit, his hand would have popped before landing. He's been working alongside Felix for this jump. Part of this is research to test out suits and science on whether or not an astronaut could conceivably egress from a capsule/shuttle reentering the earth's atmosphere and if they would be able to survive an emergency jump from such an altitude. Felix is jumping for sport and science at this point.

But why should we be interested? Because there's the same element of danger we've always appreciated about daredevils and athletes. Felix is balancing the line between daring and crazy. He's already jumped from a slew of places in the world including BASE jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and O Cristo Redentor in Sao Paulo, Brazil as well as becoming the first human being to cross the English Channel using a specially designed glide suit that allowed him to travel 22 miles over the Channel back in 2003.

What are we gaining from this? And how is it that corporate sponsors like Redbull are more interested in something like this than NASA or our own government? What does this say about us as people? And if it doesn't Felix, what's the next stunt going to be??

Art is the new TV and the impact of Shepard Fairey

I've become consumed with art. Curating, attending galleries and just visually consuming as much as possible. And then it hit me. Art is the new TV. It's no longer counter culture. Today's art might as well be full fledged commercials Still images that run for 15 or 30 seconds at a time and say nothing, because it's more powerful that way. And yet, even though we've become accustomed to viewing art through certain filters, it doesn't mean that art isn't at the mercy of large corporations. Actually, there's a really fucked up bastard child relationship with corporate ad mongers and artists.

Take Tobias Wong for example, who very much displeased McDonalds (among others) for his depiction of coffee stirrers made of gold and making it's associations to their part in drug culture as addicts would use the stirrer to scoop cocaine and indulge. It became quite the statement to some, helping forge the connection between the addictiveness of both unhealthy McDonald's food and cocaine. But really it gestures at how corporations truly feel about us and what I am getting at is, despite counter cultures, we're still at the mercy of money.

Shepard Fairey

Check this out:

I saw a Shepard Fairey "Obey" poster on Westchester Ave in the Bronx recently (somewhere near the non existent Morrison Ave stop on the 6 train). Is it because he needs to promote there anymore? Not when you've already been part of a campaign that helped elect our current President (see right).

So why do it? Why bother coming all the way into the epicenter of graffitti culture in the south bronx and put up a poster everyone and their mother has seen, especially after you've been commissioned to murals on Houston street (over an old Keith Haring by the way and it's still shameful that the city would let that happen) and ads by Saks Fifth Ave?

Because if you don't do the little things anymore you're considered a sell out and people feel justified in it because you were once a struggling street artist and should stay there.

This is partly why people love Banksy, Os Gemeos and the late great Keith Haring and on and on. Because they have yet to put themselves in a spot where a large corporation is not paying their bills. But we forget, Warhol was a designer. So is Shepard Fairey. And this become part of the problem. Designers are better promoters.

Andy Warhol

It's everywhere and nowhere at once. I recently had taken a stroll through my current gallery, on saturday night and there was a resounding amount of pop art on the walls. Not necessarily in the conventional Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Tomato Soup" pop art, but in the way that taking something else and moving onward with your own influence on it still resonates because of guys like Shepard Fairey. We strolled through the gallery and it came to me that there was once a fine line between fine art and pop art and street art and now it's becoming that much more difficult to draw that line without wanting to run it through Adobe Illustrator.

This is not to say that Shepard Fairey should be run through the meat grinder and guys like Banksy should be canonized (although he's definitely close). No, instead I think it's worth being mindful of how full circle we've really come as a community of art consumers. And I say consumer because if you buy into anything, even if it's not a product but an IDEA, than WE ARE ALL CONSUMERS.

We have Andy Warhol to thank for starting such things and Yves Klein for perpetuating the ridiculous in said things, Banksy for finding a way to share a message but we have Shepard Fairey to thank for making it true.

It is not impossible to sell an idea of importance because it IS the case now. Pure mass promotion has actually launched the career of a designer like Fairey into artistic superstardom. Where he was once as underground (and I use the term loosely) as guys like Blu or Space Invader or Eine or Basquiat or Fairey himself during the mid 90's.

So what am I saying? I don't know exactly. What I do know, is that at one point the same art that you reveled at for being so daring will also be the art you second guess for being put into a museum and finally you'll end up hating it because it sold you a handbag. Don't judge the art because of what it's doing to you, judge it because of what it is.