A “universally despised” postmodern public square in Los Angeles is getting a second look this week with the addition of a surreal glittering silver cloud that undulates in the air above the concrete, seemingly floating without any supports. Tethered from a 10-story purple bell tower to a lower corner of the park, the latticework installation is made of thousands of holographic mylar strips that flutter in the breeze. The work is a collaboration between patrick Shearn of Poetic Kinetics and the AA Visiting School of Los Angeles, a week-long design program for art students.

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Due for a makeover in 2019 that will replace much of the concrete with grass and create shade canopies, Pershing Square tends to be empty and quiet despite renewed vitality in other areas of downtown L.A. It’s one of the city’s oldest public spaces, but had its trees and grass ripped out in 1951 so a parking garage could be installed beneath it.

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Poetic Kinetics is known for creating many of the massive, colorful creations that appear at Burning Man each year. Sharon says he was inspired by nature and “the feeling that we are only aware on a very surface level of what is really going on around us. We feel the currents of air on our skin but do not see the larger movements.”

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The Los Angeles Times captured 360-degree views of the installation, which billows like a school of fish when it catches the wind just right. Measuring 15,000 square feet, ‘Liquid Shard’ will remain in place through August 11th, so stop by and experience it in person if you can.

Last time we caught up with miniaturist Slinkachu, the UK-based artist had placed his little people on the streets of Paris, and now he’s brought his signature blink-and-you’ll-miss-them scenes to the United Arab Emirates. Tailoring each tiny tableau to the setting, Slinkachu has captured a series of humorous moments full of ostentatious wealth, surveillance, camels, tourists doing stupid things and other elements that are quintessentially Dubai.

The new series of 10 miniature installations appeared on the streets as part of Dubai Walls, the first outdoor urban art show in the UAE. Slinkachu, “abandoning little people in the streets since 2006,” is one of sixteen artists participating in the event, which also features Etam Cru, ROA and Eine.

Slinkachu customizes miniature figurines, hand-paints them and then creates little scenes in public places, often right on the sidewalk in plain view of passersby. They end up becoming temporary art, often swept up almost immediately and thrown away, or taken by people who want to keep them for themselves. Since these were created specifically for an art fair, they likely had a longer run in the streets than usual.

“The ‘Little People Project’ started in 2006,” says the artist. “It involves the remodeling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which I then place, photograph and leave on the street. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project. The street-based side of my work plays with the notion of surprise and I am to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings.”

“The scenes I set up, more evident through the photography and the titles I give these scenes, aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed. But underneath this, there is always some humor. I want people to be able to sympathize with the tiny people in my works.”

Approaching the Grand Canal of Versailles from the palace, something seems off about the landscape: a tower of water pours from a seemingly invisible support, as if a hole has opened up in the sky. It’s only when you step to either side that you notice the steel structure that sends the waterfall crashing onto the glassy surface of the canal. This intervention is just one of nine that artist Olafur Eliasson has installed in the gardens and inside the Palace of Versailles, shifting visitors’ perception of their environment and themselves. ‘Olafur Versailles’ will be in place through October.

Continuing an eight-year tradition of inviting artists to transform the Palace and its grounds with their work, the new installation seems to shift this French landmark slightly off the axis of reality, adding a dreamy sense of strangeness that changes the atmosphere of the entire château. In the gardens, three installations represent various states of water; the second is a circular arrangement of steel pipes pumping fog onto the lawn while the third fills the Bosquet de la Colonnade with ‘glacial rock flour.’

Step inside to face illusions of light and reflection, using mirrors to make it unclear whether you are looking at your real surroundings or a mere facsimile of them at any given time. Perspectives of the interiors suddenly lose their sense of balance, and visitors catch glimpses of their own reflections in unexpected places, as if witnessing their own identical twins moving through the space.

“The Versailles that I have been dreaming up is a place that empowers everyone. It invites visitors to take control of the authorship of their experience instead of simply consuming and being dazzled by the grandeur. It asks them to exercise their senses, to embrace the unexpected, to drift through the gardens, and to feel the landscape take shape through their movement.”

Imbued with a sense of reverence, not to mention all those beautifully vaulted spaces, cathedrals and other sacred spaces can be stunning settings for art installations of all kinds, from ethereal light projections to complex arrangements of string. Abandoned churches get the revival of a lifetime when painted floor-to-cupola with vivid murals, while the ruins of long-lost cathedrals are resurrected in ghostly wire forms.

‘Our Colour Reflection’ by Liz West, UK

Hundreds of mirrored discs in a spectrum of colors hover above the floor of England’s former St. John’s Church in Scunthorpe, reflecting rainbow light all over the interior. The installation by Liz West is gorgeous when taking it in as a whole, but step closer and you’ll see that each disc is like a miniature work of art in itself, containing its own tiny composition of architectural elements.

Ghost Church Made of Wire by Edoardo Tresoldi, Italy

A long-lost early Christian basilica is resurrected in ghostly form, its contours traced in wire for a translucent effect. Located in the historic park of Siponto in the Southern Italian region of Puglia, this installation by Edoardo Tresoldi lets modern-day visitors explore the church as it is thought to have appeared centuries ago.

Video Mapping by Marcos Zotes, Iceland

Artist and architect Marcos Zotes uses the facade of Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland’s largest church, as a canvas for projections of monumental proportions in a show called ‘Rafmognu? Náttúra.’ Moderating the color and movement through a midi controller, the artist created a dynamic visual experience that made the architecture seem to come alive.

11 Mirages to Freedom by Okuda San Miguel, Morocco

An abandoned and dilapidated church gets a striking makeover with the addition of a vivid mural covering nearly all of its exterior surfaces. Street artist Okuda San Miguel painted ’11 Mirages to Freedom’ on the outside of this church in Morrocco as an interactive display honoring its past as well as its structural beauty.

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Holy Art 13 Spectacular Secular Installations In Sacred Spaces

Inflatables are good for more than just pool toys and camping beds – they also come in the form of giant tentacles springing from open windows, the world’s largest rubber duck and (literally) gigantic piles of crap. Blow-up buildings can have a practical purpose as mobile architecture, but sometimes, oversized inflatables are just for fun, transforming both interior and exterior environments and bringing shock value to art festivals around the world.

Giant Poo, Pig & Stonehenge

A group of artists came together in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong to install oversized inflatable works, including ‘Complex Pile’ by Paul McCarthy, ‘House of Treasures’ by Cao Fei and ‘Sacrilege’ by Jeremy Deller, for an art festival.

Plastic Bubble Environments Transform Interiors

All that’s left of an interior space once these inflatable plastic environments by Penique Productions are put into place is the basic shape and structure of it, all details obscured to create a surreal new environment. The Barcelona-based group inflates massive colorful balloons inside buildings to transform them for special events.

Tentacles, Eyeballs & More by Filthy Luker

French street artist Filthy Luker makes it seem as if gigantic octopi are trying to escape from buildings around the world, and anthropomorphizes trees with inflatable eyeballs.

Inflatable Snow Chalet in Miami Beach

The unlikely sight of a snow-topped ski chalet bobs up and down in the bay beside the now-abandoned Miami Marine Stadium for Art Basel 2013. Entitled ‘Curiosity,’ the giant inflatable structure by Paris-based Galerie Perrotin and French artist duo Kolkoz plays on contrasts. “‘Curiosity’ was the name that was given to the last Mars exploration rover. We have taken this idea of an invader exploring a foreign land and applied it to the snow covered chalet that has set off on a journey and arrived in the middle of a maritime stadium in the hot Florida sun.”

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Inflatable Installations 18 Fun Projects Full Of Hot Air