Massive machine animals in France

Les Machines de l’ile de Nantes are massive mechanical animals on exhibition in Nantes, France. Designed by François Delarozière and Pierre Oreficee, the fantastic creatures in the menagerie include an elephant, squid, Manta ray, and more. Dark Roasted Blend posted some beautiful photos of the hydraulic beasties.
Link to Dark Roasted Blend, Link to Les Machines site, Link to video of elephant (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

[#1 posted by Angstrom , January 28, 2008 11:45 AM]

The performance of "The Sultans Elephant" in London was pretty amazing, sadly I didn't get to see it in person.

these beasts all wandered around London for 4 days acting out a modified Jules Verne story

[#2 posted by Jeff , January 28, 2008 12:11 PM]

Very nice, but can we trip it with cables? Does it have a ridiculously vunerable under-belly? This is obviously a disguised Empiral walker!

[#3 posted by Skeptobot , January 28, 2008 1:06 PM]

I saw the Elephant and puppet girl in london. It was brilliant. One brilliant aspect you don't often here about is how it was advertised. They didn't make it clear at all what was going on.

They didn't make it clear, where the Elephant was. You had to hunt it. Me and my friend spent almost an hour wandering around, asking people, following crowds. We knew we were getting closer when we kept finding the crushed cars.

Then we turned to a corner to walk straight into it.

A brilliant day.

[#4 posted by cinemajay , January 28, 2008 6:25 PM]

Sort of reminds me of Lucy the Margate Elephant:

http://www.lucytheelephant.org/indexhi.html

...be warned: the website is adoringly antiquated!

[#5 posted by Riblets , January 28, 2008 9:23 PM]

Don't forget their best project,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXr15K2uSc

[#6 posted by frenchienick , January 29, 2008 1:20 AM]

This place rules!
My grandparents live in Nantes, where this is located, and I always stop by here on my way to visit them. My three year old daugther loves it almost as much as I do. The coolest thing, aside from the elephant, is the beautiful merry-go-round, with mantas, fish, and other sweet creatures.
It is absolutely worth the trip if you are in the Loire area.
You gotta love french state-subsidized art!

[#7 posted by davorg , January 30, 2008 4:00 AM]

See the pool of Sultan's Elephant photos on Flickr.

[#8 posted by DrChewbacca , January 31, 2008 2:33 PM]

Just one detail : it's not exactly an "exhibition". The Machines will stay in Nantes permanently. The Elephant is currently the only one that's fully functionnal. The other ones are being displayed while being built ; when finished, the squid and other fishes will be used on a big merry-go-round.

> More photos of the Machines available here

[#9 posted by DrChewbacca , February 1, 2008 1:32 PM]

This is the link that didn't work in my previous post : more photos of the Machines in Nantes