Toshibas new "Chairs in space" looks like Simon Faithfull's escape vehicles

Toshiba have gone all out weird and send chairs to space in their new campaign to support Toshiba’s SV REGZA LCD TV and Satellite T series laptops. When you can watch TV anywhere, where do you want your easy chair to be? Doing a ballon-boy? You got it.

a href="https://adland.tv/toshiba-space-chair-2009-60-uk">Toshiba - "Space Chair" - (2009) :60 (UK)

As many have nudged me, people think this looks a lot like they're quite inspired by Simon Faithfull's "Gravity sucks" exhibition. Lets compare shall we?

Simon Faithfull - Escape Vehicle number 6 - (2004) :60 (UK)

Now, On Toshiba's own website, as they have heard these questions, Toshiba responds:

Toshiba's new 'Space Chair' ad was inspired by a sub culture of scientists and artists who send objects to the edge of space using weather balloons. Grey London collaborated with a number of talented individuals, including British artist Simon Faithfull, to re-create the concept of launching a generic chair into space, and by using their own HD cameras, to demonstrate how Toshiba technology can take something ordinary and make it extraordinary.

So before you fetch your pitchforks and torches, Simon might have gotten paid for his collaboration. Lets hope so. (Or sharpen the pitchforks anyway, just for that "trying something that's never been done before" line in the "making of space chair" video)

Toshiba - The Making of Space Chair - (2009) 3:34 (UK)

Update - greenface made an interesting comment below

Simon Faithfull: "I was not "absolutely part of the team" as Matt McDowell has recently suggested - the first time I saw the Toshiba film myself was when people started sending me the YouTube link. I did help with the underlying themes and ideas behind the advert in that I had one meeting with Grey within which we discussed the possibility of re-staging my artwork 'Escape Vehicle no.6' during my recent exhibition at the British Film Institute. The idea was that this would be a large, live public event in the centre of London and later there would also be an edited version for TV functioning as an artwork/advert. This subsequently didn't work out and I can't really say any more for legal reasons."