Wired on Cai Guo-Qiang, the man behind the Beijing opening ceremony’s fireworks

Wired on Cai Guo-Qiang, the man behind the Beijing opening ceremony’s fireworks:

The New York-based, Chinese-born Cai is an installation artist who revels in using explosives (primarily gunpowder) to create violent displays of pyrotechnics, or, as he calls them, “explosion works.” And because of his considerable talents with both art and fire, he was commissioned to produce Friday’s opening Olympic ceremony.

The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics were simply mind-blowing. I can only imagine what it must’ve been like to have actually been there, underneath the firestorm.