Heart-Stopping Art of the Day: Giant Inflatable Tentacles

An artist from the U.K. has found a way to make it look as if buildings are being strangled by a malignant Kraken. And for this, we the public should be eternally grateful.

The goosebump-spreading sculptures of Filthy Luker (real name, Luke) look like complete Photoshops, but they're oh-so-real. "I have been putting them up all over the world in many various places and ways since about 2004," the artist e-mails. Luker embarked upon his line of startling objects by first painting huge balloons to look like eyes. After that caught on, he built up a business devoted to custom-making blowup octopi and what appears to be alien bacteria using 3-D software and fire-retardant nylon.