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We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat for This Shark Sculpture

A discarded fuel tank from a F-94 bomber transforms into a miniature kinetic submarine sculpture.
Images courtesy the artist.

From a distance, Megalodon looks like an aluminum model of a shark submarine. Upon closer inspection, one slowly begins to recognize the frame of a discarded fuel tank from a F-94 bomber plane turned into a wondrous miniature world by the artist Nemo Gould. The sculpture was pieced together from a collection of found objects in addition to a selection of handcrafted ones. Several pieces of the shark, like the fins and the stand, were made by the artist, while other parts were made out of repurposed household items. Gould describes the piece as “part submarine, part spaceship.”

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Through a transparent window, one can observe all of the separate rooms of the ship in a way similar to Wes Anderson's set for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. There’s a weapons room, an engine room, a boiler room, and a kind of cooling fan. All of this is captured under the yellow and red glow of submarine-style internal lights. On top of the shark, by its top fin, lies a light tower and a lookout bridge.

One won't fully grasp the scale of the shark sub until finding the little plastic toy men carrying out their respective maintenance tasks throughout the ship. One of these little workers can be seen welding the inside cylinder of one of the bombs in the weapons room, while another looks out of the glass container near the ship's deck. The artist says, “The viewer is both dwarfed, and empowered in its presence.”

Megalodon gets its name from what was once the largest species of shark to ever live: a prehistoric apex predator that went extinct 2.6 million years ago. Gould's metal version is covered with long barrel cannons and filled with what appears to be tiny bombs, but what might very well be the coolest part about Megalodon, is that it actually moves. Below, watch the industrious machine come to life. Its eyeballs shutter, propellers spin, and top fin wags. All of its moving parts operate on a system of gears and motors that Gould himself put together. Check out Megalodon in action below:

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Megalodon 2016 (extended) from Nemo Gould on Vimeo.

For more, head over to Nemo Gould’s website.

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