No, your eyes aren’t fooling you: that little bonsai pictured above is really floating mid-air. The team at Hoshinchu, the creators behind the aptly named Air Bonsai, decided to give the art of bonsai a futuristic facelift by letting the tiny plants levitate on a magnetic field. Both the ‘energy base’ (essentially magnets housed in a pretty ceramic bowl) and the ‘little star’ (a springy ball of moss or a full-blown mini-tree) are a nod to the galaxy, although in the creators' own words, 'these stars change colours every season'. The Air Bonsai runs on an AC adaptor, which allows the plant to rotate while floating. Tranquillity meets high-tech: pretty damn cool.
The innovative product has definitely piqued the interest of many at home and abroad – its Kickstarter campaign, which started on January 21, has shot up to reach well over twice its target amount in under a week, with over $100,000 being pledged last weekend alone, and nearly $300,000 being pledged in total so far. With over a month left until the campaign ends, that number is surely set to rise even more. Now that’s a lot of bonsai love. They don’t come particularly cheap though: pledges start at $1, but only those from $200 and up actually get you both the energy base and a 'little star', and everything you’d need for your own floating ball of moss.
Interested? Check out their various introduction videos on their Kickstarter page.
For those overseas, note that custom regulations bar the export of plants, so local plants will have to be sourced instead.
– By Kirsty Bouwers