Laser Cat curates artworks, projects them in beams from his eyes

Do you like cats? Do you like lasers? Then you will like Laser Cat, a giant inflatable feline that shoots projections of artworks out his eyes like laser beams.

Laser Cat is the brainchild of Dave Glass and Kill Cooper, who together form Hungry Castle, a creative studio that develops public artworks under the mantra “we make cool shit”. And they really do.

“Lionel Ritchie’s Head isn’t something a client needs, but it’s pure art. That’s why we said adios to our clients and said hello to cool shit”

You might remember them from such previous works as Lionel Ritchie’s Head, a giant model of the crooner’s cranium that has been toured around music festivals. People brave enough to go inside Ritchie’s head discover a telephone. If they pick up the receiver, they hear “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”. Yes, Lionel, it is. They also made an enormous model of Big Bird, who would poop on people at Secret Garden Party for good luck. 

Barcelona-based Hungry Castle started out as a fairly regular kind of design agency. Cooper and Glass had met at a conference and liked each other’s “creative swag”.

“I’m from Ireland, he’s from Australia, but we rock the same brand of craziness,” Cooper told Wired.co.uk. “I was into hip-hop, shows like the Mighty Boosh, zany humour and pop culture in general.” Cooper found out that Glass was planning to launch an agency and so the two went into business together.

For the first two years they worked on brand identities for clients, but then a year ago they decided to take a leap and start to make large-scale interactive art inspired by web culture. “We materialise the immaterial of internet memes in a fun and playful way,” says Cooper.

One of the first things they did was start working on Lionel Ritchie’s Head. Having come up with the design and the plan to take it to UK festival Bestival, they raised funds on Kickstarter. When they smashed their target, they decided to fire all of their regular clients and go it alone.

“Lionel Ritchie’s Head isn’t something a client needs, but it’s pure art. That’s why we said adios to our clients and said hello to cool shit,” Cooper explains.

“We’ve done plenty of other experimental projects,” adds Glass, “but this was the first that really resonated with people. It was pure Lionel Ritchie escapism — your voice, his voice, connecting.” When the head made its debut at Bestival, there were two-hour queues. A couple of Australians even paid £1,000 to sleep inside the sculpture.

“Everyone just seemed to understand. We didn’t need a complex description or title, just get inside ‘Lionel Ritchie’s Head’. As opposed to Untitled 53, a series of oil paintings of landscapes.”

After Lionel Ritchie’s Head came Laser Cat. Hungry Castle met with Ignacio Oreamuno, who heads up ADC Festival of Art & Craft, which takes place in Miami in April. He was looking to create an exhibition of the personal art work of people in advertising.

“We gave him Laser Cat,” says Glass. Laser Cat was one of hundreds of ideas they have on an “ideas shelf” and one that they had been wanting to explore for more than a year.

“It could have been executed in many ways, but we thought ‘why don’t we make Laser Cat the curator of this art show?’ Let’s project art through his laser beam eyes onto buildings,” he added “It was a marriage of ideas inspired by animated GIFs floating around the internet. The internet is obsessed with cats in general, maybe even more so than Lionel Ritchie.”

This concept has translated into an inflatable cat with powerful projectors positioned and LED lights in its eyes, which will eventually be pointing towards the New World Centre in Miami. (sadly they couldn’t use real lasers because the building is under a flight path) Hungry Castle has been inviting people to submit pictures of their artworks to Laser Cat for the last four months. They have more than 10,000 pieces of original art, but will only be able to show the top 50-100 in a 45-minute light show at the festival’s finale at midnight on 9 April. 

“There will be this giant button that people can come up to, press it then ‘pew pew, explosion’ and it will project artwork onto the centre. Then the next person can come up,” says Kill.

To supplement the income from exhibiting their large-scale artworks, Hungry Castle also has a shop where people can buy related items of clothing — sweaters featuring Lionel’s face and an amazing Laser Cat top, among other “cool shit”.

“We make giant artworks that aren’t for sale. Most artists make art and sell it and make more, but we want to take our art to as many places as possible,” explains Glass. “The core of what we are doing is about telling stories, and we want people to tell the stories with us. Our ‘gift shop’ is the clothing. We want people to wear our art.”

He adds that the model might be more closely aligned with a band’s revenue model. “We take our art on tour, share it with as many people as possible but end up making money from merchandise. The Stones sell more T-shirts than music.”

“It’s risky, but we have been lucky,” adds Cooper. “We have to make as much noise as possible, grow our community, get them to buy fashion to feed the art. We bring the fun — that’s important for event organisers because it’s the stuff that people will share afterwards.”

“[Our work] polarises people, but it gets them talking. Is it cool, shit or cool shit? ” muses Cooper.

As might be expected, people often suggest projects or subject matter that the duo should explore — there have been lots of requests for Michael Jackson’s head, for example.

Wired.co.uk suggests something unicorn-themed. “We have a unicorn on the shelf,” says Cooper. “We’ll give you the unicorn exclusive.”

That’s music to Wired.co.uk’s ears. We’ll definitely hold them to it.