The Argentinian Red Cross has come up with a rather clever way to educate people about global warming. They have a guy who appears to have melted handing out leaflets. I can’t figure out, however, exactly where the rest of the guy is. From the photos in the article, you can see that he’s on concrete steps, and the melted mass does not appear to be high enough for him to have his legs folded up underneath him. So where’s the rest of him? Given that its only the part just below his chest, I can’t imagine that the guy’s an amputee hired for the job. Nor can I see anything like a built up structure concealing the rest of his body, and it seems unlikely that they’d jack hammer a hole in the concrete for him to stand in. Any ideas?
I vote for Jack Hammer.
Paging Criss Angel…
I’d bet on an existing opening such as a recessed utility access box.
I’d agree with you except for the location… While I’m sure they exist I rarely see a recessed access box or manhole cover right at the very top of a set of stairs… Actually if it were a recess it’d be just a few inches from the top step. Doesn’t make a lot of sense from a construction standpoint… It’d be very easy to break that short few inches of cement from general wear and tear or say, something big and heavy like metal or rock being dropped on it. More than likely they’d be several feet away from the stairs up or down.
Though barring the amputee theory I don’t see how else it could be done.
I bet that there’s a partially-dismantled and empty flowerbed in which the man is sitting. The flowerbed wall next to the steps has been removed, and they placed tiles right over the hole, up to his body.
Edit: on reviewing the other pics, a utility box would seem to be more likely–he’s next to a larger flowerbed. Or m aybe the step was under constrcution and had been removed, and they just covered over the hole with tiles on a wooden frame.
Yeah, the tiles look funky, like they don’t belong there on the steps.
The tiles don’t bother me - the stuff in the background does. In one shot it is a planter, in another, people are standing there. Is one photoshopped?
The angles of the two shots are sufficiently different that I think there might be a walkway between the stairs and the planter in background. In the top photo we’re looking at steep downward angle, and we can only see the concrete wall of the planter in the background behind the crowd. In the second, we’re looking at it much more horizontally.
Do we know that the stairs have been there longer than the advertisement? Maybe the stairs were made for this stunt. It could be a combined awareness-art project.
Why is it so hard to believe that they dug a hole there just for this stunt?
All Red Cross Argentina would have to do is approach the owner of the property and ask “We are going to do this stunt in one month that is for a good cause and is guaranteed to be in the news since we will distribute it. Here is a picture of what it will look like. It requires us to dig a 1.5x1.5 hole in your stairs, we will have it repaired that night at no cost to you. Here is proof of funding and our insurance.”
Keep in mind that there are probably maintanence/contruction guys cutting holes through concrete and/or covering them up right now somewhere in the world. It really isn’t all that hard a process.
It ain’t cheap, however, and the guy’s apparently not soliciting donations, merely handing out leaflets.
According to the story in the Argentine newspapers, he is in Plaza Francia in Buenos Aires, which is a public plaza.
If you click on the “Ver mas fotos” here and check out the second picture, I think you can tell that both the cement and the tile nearest the guy are a bit wonky. I think there has definitely been recent construction work on the site.
None of the articles I found mentioned how it was done, just that it was a local advertising agency who came up with the idea.
I once worked with a woman who was born without very much below her ribcage. She had a great sense of humor about her situation (when her husband snored, she went into the closet and slept in the laundry basket). She would have volunteered for that job, and kept everyone guessing. Especially if she appeared in different locations.
Are we certain it’s a real person? Looks like a waxwork dummy to me.
The article gives the guy’s name, and he’s in different positions in the two shots, so it seems unlikely he’s a dummy.
I would say his body is under the pavers. That isn’t a concrete surface–those are pedestal pavers which usually have 8 to 16 inches underneath them. Typically on public plazas the top surface is composed of concrete pavers set on pedestals which allow a flat even surface to walk on. The surface underneath (the structural surface) is sloped to an internal drain and is waterproofed.
Thus in this photo–they have just removed a few pavers, he is sitting down and then the replaced the pavers around him covering the surface so that you can’t tell.
Here is a page with images of what it would look like underneath
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Pedestal-Pavers
in particular look at the fourth image down on the right side of the page
Has it occurred to you that perhaps the poor man really has melted? How many more Argentinians have to melt before we get serious about Global Warming?
Does it? I just see him described as “a young man.” And the position looks pretty much the same in both pictures, just taken from different angles. Anyway, dummies can have moveable joints.
If it’s a real person, the guy’s sitting in a hole. If he’s an amputee they wouldn’t be hiding the construction of the hole so much with the guy’s shirt and the other stuff. OTOH, there’s a definite possibility that it’s a dummy since only two photos are available (anywhere on the web) and it was a marketing gimmick created by an ad agency.