Aliens have landed! In the still of the morning on New Year’s Day a strange sight was spied on the Main Street of Gorey when a 8ft UFO complete with dancing aliens and two gardaí touched down.
Of course this is the second time that a UFO has chosen Gorey as it’s destination with the town hitting the headlines in 2016 for a similar landing.
Fear not though as this UFO comes not from Mars or Venus but from the hard graft of talented artist Ali Kemal Ali. After his initial display of a larger UFO in 2016 garnered so much attention Ali decided to showcase this 8ft masterpiece to mark the start of a New Year.
“It was literally for a bit of fun”, he said. “I thought, if aliens are going to come to earth then why not come to Gorey on New Year’s day 2024,” said Ali.
Ali’s original 10ft UFO became a viral sensation when he posted a video on Facebook of himself driving it down Gorey Main Street with a garda escort. That clip was soon watched all over the world and accrued more than 20 millions views online. “I was getting calls from my family in the UK. TV3 had my clip on their show. It was crazy,” said Ali.
Due to the impeccable standard of Ali’s work, after watching the video some people claimed they believed aliens had landed in Gorey.
Ali’s creation was for his final year art project at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT). This project took him more than 16 weeks to create and was one of the college’s biggest final year projects to date.
The original UFO had a seat at its centre, while Ali’s legs fit into the fuselage. The tinted windows provided for 360 degree vision. Electric motors were used to drive it and it was controlled by handlebars and a throttle. It also included a subwoofer for the engine noise, a laser, a smoke machine and low lighting.
Ali had an unconventional path into art and only discovered his artistic talent when he started painting in the early 2000s. “I did a Picasso, a Van Gogh and a Turner and they came out pretty good. So I thought if I go to art college I can learn how to paint and earn a living painting,” said Ali.
He met artist Michael Warner while attending Gorey School of Art and he soon learned that sculpting may be his true calling. “I fell in love with the man, next minute I’m making sculptures and he’s inviting me to his house and he’s showing me his set up so then I started thinking that I want to make sculptures,” said Ali.
His teachers at Gorey School of Art advised him to apply for a degree in Art in IADT. He got into IADT and they allowed him to enter straight into third year of the course. “I thought, a two year degree, happy days!” said Ali.
He graduated with a BA Honours in Art and soon after that a position came up and he started working as a technician at IADT. “I was in the right place at the right time. I’m still there and I still love it,” said Ali. More recently, he also graduated with a BA Honours in Stage and Screen.
Ali’s originally from London and moved to Dublin with his wife and children in 1996. They moved to Gorey in 2001 and sadly his wife passed away from cancer a year later. Ali spent the subsequent years looking after his children. He’s always been creative and had built sets for the BBC and ITV in the 1970s. “I was always good with my hands and very creative but I never put two and two together,” said Ali.
Ali’s artistic endeavours have only escalated since the video went viral online and he has designed and created three more UFOs since then.
His UFOs vary in size, one of them is a model UFO that he made for a Guinness advert which has never been aired. The one that landed on Gorey Main Street recently is the smallest one at only 8feet wide and it’s the easiest one to transport from place to place.
Although the aliens seen dancing on Gorey Main Street alongside the UFO seemed very real, Layla Furlong, Allie Furlong and Zoe Kennedy were inside the masks and costumes which were handmade by Sarah Byrne and Elise McEvoy, two students from IADT. “They’re absolutely amazing masks and they’re made from silicone,” said Ali.
Festival revellers may have come across Ali’s largest UFO while raving in the woods in Stradbally as it is a permanent fixture at Electric Picnic (EP). At 35ft, it’s hard to miss.
After placing his original 10ft UFO in the woods in EP, Ali was given the opportunity to design and create his own stage at EP. The stage is called ‘Transmission’ which he works on alongside a team of 50 people consisting of artists, students from IADT and 10 DJs from Gorey.
”What we did that first year was such an amazing event that they had to block the road off because it was just so packed. They told me I could expand on it so I designed the mother ship and it’s just grown from there,” said Ali.
The mother ship took three years to develop. They’ve also made a stargate out of a trampoline, souvenir t-shirts and a 5ft fibreglass moon.
At the most recent EP, seven students dressed as aliens and roamed the festival’s crowd. Each alien had a chaperone with them, all 14 were students from IADT.
«I’m a glutton for punishment I can’t sit still, I’m already planning for next years Electric Picnic,” said Ali. He’s currently working on developing a 15ft sphere for EP which will be the alien’s planet and will include projections, LEDs, sound effects and visuals.
Ali has always been fascinated by UFOs and aliens and like many people, cannot believe that there isn’t life on another planet in the solar system.
“I’ve never seen a UFO or an alien and I’ve never been abducted but I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction because I just can’t believe that we’re here on our own. There has to be other life out there,” said Ali.
Regardless of whether aliens and UFOs are real they’ve certainly changed the trajectory of Ali’s career.
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