This year the attendees at Coachella were introduced to “Helix Poeticus,” a huge snail created by the people of The Giant Storybook Project. This project started in September of last year. It is street art duo Herakut’s way of previewing a children’s book they are working on. Using their favorite canvasses of walls the couple is traveling around the world painting giant murals. Either watching the live painting or seeing photos and videos after the fact, people are becoming familiar with characters like Lilly, the Goddess, the monkeys, Jay and the giants. Some of the paintings include text, putting more of the story in perspective.
Helix doesn’t appear to be a story character at the moment but another medium for Hera and Akut to paint on. The beast that seemed to be inspired by Dr. Doolittle, arrived at Coachella with a pristine holographic body and pure white shell. The “vehicle” was the creation of Poetic Kinetics, a group of artists from L.A., who specialize in large-scale art. Herakut arrived with caps and cans and proceeded to grace Poeticus’ body and shell with a number of the storybook’s characters and the great life lesson “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Poetic Kinetics has their own archive of the creation of Helix which includes his experiences at Coachella. The book even has its own trailer in the form of this video of the prologue.
Learn more about this project at any of the links below:
The Giant Storybook on Twitter
— Kathy Creighton | @Mama_Kath
Here is another video about the evolution of Poeticus into a page in the The Giant Storybook that was posted by Herakut on their Facebook today https://vimeo.com/65781746