Double-decker bus does pushups for Olympics (VIDEO)

GlobalPost

Czech artist David Cerny turned a traditional London double-decker bus into a mechanical sculpture of an athlete doing pushups to celebrate the opening of the Olympics on Friday.

Cerny gave the double-decker bus huge, red arms to lift itself with, outfitting the six-ton London mainstay with a special hydraulic system, an electrical engine and a lot of wiring and suspension tools to turn it into the "London Booster," according to Car Scoop. It also plays recordings of a groaning voice while it exercises, for added effect.

"There is one common exercise for every sportsman in the world, and that is push-up," said Cerny, reported Car Scoop. "It is training for sport activities but at the same time it is also punishment in armies and prisons. So the pushups are a very universal physical activity...It is in a way very ironic."

More from GlobalPost: In-depth series: London Olympics

This isn't Cerny's first piece of work to make waves in the art community. According to Reuters, he revealed a huge puzzle-like object in 2009 called "Entropa" in an EU building in Brussels that portrayed European countries in some very unflattering ways. Bulgaria protested its portrayal as a squat toilet, Germany was a Swastika-like web of highways, France was covered by an "On Strike" banner and the UK was completely missing. Cerny has also painted a Soviet tank pink in Prague and put a statue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in formaldehyde in a piece he called "Shark," poking fun at British artist Damien Hirst's embalmed shark piece.

The Telegraph reported that his latest sculpture will be kept outside the Czech Olympic headquarters in Islington, north London, for the duration of the Games.

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