Beyond the Ball: 10 Unique Disco Ball Designs
Disco balls—or mirror balls, as one might have called them before Donna Summers’ time—are a favorite nightlife fixture that first caught momentum in the Roaring Twenties. But the giant, glittering orbs have been documented as far back as 1897, when your great-great-grandparents were trippin’ out and staring at shiny lights. Since then, you can be sure people have gotten a bit experimental, so we set out to find the world’s most decadent and bizarre shimmering showstoppers.
Disco Bust
This here sexy lady can be found holding high court above the Westway in New York City. This is a place known for its wild nightlife, which would be reason enough for a shiny bust, but it’s also a strip club. So, there’s that.
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is the man. Disco balls are dope. Who wouldn’t want to put those two things together? We’re not sure where this guy actually exists—maybe only in a party-verse far, far away.
Dented Disco Balls
Created by graduate architecture students at UCLA, these funky forms were developed with digital software to blow your freaking mind. Note how sporadic the spotlight is, given the freaky dimensions.
Bitmapped Ball
Light Leaks from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.
As we push the classic design concept even further toward our technological future, we see what happens when artists 3D-map 50 glimmering spheres. The collaboration of artists Kyle McDonald and Jonas Jongejan, the result is a magical sensory overload of space-age proportions.
Melting Disco Balls
Listen, Dalí, melting clocks are pretty cool, but The Persistence of Memory’s got nothing on these droopy disco diamonds. It’s a recurring theme for Rotganzen, three Dutch friends and collaborators who specialize in “post-pop art.”
Musical Balls
Is it a disco ball if it doesn’t shine? Light artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer seems to think so. He 3D-printed these spheres with music in mind, but instead of adding to an atmosphere, they are the concert. Each nodule is programmed to play a song by a classical artist—say, Mozart—and the size of the ball exemplifies the prodigiousness of said artist. Bigger ball, bigger musical catalog. You get the idea.
Disco Legs
We thought Chromeo were cool for having those leg-shaped keyboard stands, but the trademark disco legs from tastemaker nightlife brand A Club Called Rhonda blows those bad boys out of the water. “Fierce” doesn’t even begin to describe.
Shiny Skull
Simmons Bar in London isn’t a giant nightclub. Hell, it isn’t a nightclub at all, but the narrow pub boasts one of the most bad disco balls we’ve ever heard of. It’s as if the cover of Boys Noize’s Oi Oi Oi came to life.
Disco Shark
“Jumping the shark” is usually kind of a bad thing, but there’s nothing wrong with this animal-friendly dance partner. Created by New York-based artist and conservationist Kevin McHugh for Coachella 2014, the disco shark made its return to the desert festival this year with a conservation campaign in conjunction with Oceana, Shark Team One, and Daymond John from ABC’s Shark Tank to raise money for endangered sharks.
World’s Largest Disco Ball
World’s Largest Disco Ball – Bestival 2014 from NS_CLIENT on Vimeo.
It might not be shaped like a shark or a skull or a lady’s legs, but with a diameter of 10.33 meters, music festival Bestival’s giant, rotating disco ball officially holds the Guinness World Record for largest disco ball in the world. Dayum.
