The Icebox @ Crane Arts Center in Fishtown is an enormous white, cavernous space with high walls and no columns, it actually used to be a huge refrigerator.  Now it’s one of the premier art spaces in Philadelphia and through 11/22 will be hosting “40,000 Feet” by Su Tomesen, five huge projections of clouds viewed from an airplane with mist drifting across the floor and the low hum of jets, bleeps and bloops of seat-belt signs and the grind of lowering landing gear.  The effect is that of the perfect flight, the magic of riding high in the sky finally restored without having to take off your shoes.

Su explained to DoN there are several variables: time, movement, imperfection and the human hand.  The movie is not perfect, it’s not shot with five movie cameras somehow suspended from the underside of a plane, it’s the same clip playing at five different intervals.  But the illusion of clouds drifting endlessly by is mesmerizing like flying on a magic carpet with the mist drifting through room creating a veil of mystery.  Tomesen is thrilled with the space, the show previously was exhibited in a restaurant in Amsterdam above a row of windows abbreviating some of the magic.

40,000 Feet time-warped DoN back to cloud-watching with Grandma, looking for animals and faces in the sky while lying on the ground, only this time the view is from Heaven.

There is an artist reception Wednesday, 11/18 @ Crane Arts, 1400 American Street.