BMW GINA - Morphing Car With Flexible Fabric Skin

Yesterday I posted a video of the BMW interactive kinetic sculpture, an installation that forms part of the companies recently launched museum. While browsing their Web TV site I saw a video of another exhibit from the museum. Called GINA, the exhibit is a prototype car with a flexible fabric skin instead of a traditional rigid metal or fibreglass body. The car is engineered to be able to morph, changing its shape. The changes can only be made within fairly limited physical parameters. It is a framework under the flexible skin that is able to move, but with such precision engineering in car design, even the most subtle of changes in a plane or line can have radical aesthetic or aerodynamic affect.

The concept of using a flexible fabric skin is in itself very radical and interesting, especially combined with the ability to change the cars shape, and I am sure that there will be great desire and expectation to see something so innovative find its way into production. However the thing that I find even more interesting is to see how the car itself has been so influential on the visual language of the current series of BMW production cars. The car itself looks very much a BMW. The shapes and lines that the car cuts, are distinctly BMW, yet it does not appear that a visual language has been mapped onto the car, rather the technology of a simple frame pushing through the flexible fabric skin creating its own unique language. From what I have garnered from other posts online, the car is at least six years old. It would appear that the team imagined up a car that not only explored the idea of a flexible skin, but also became a tool for exploring new forms and shapes, and became a tool in evolving BMW's avant guarde visual design language. This is an example where, at least in part the technology has been used to express the visual language. The shapes do not come from a computer, or from traditional crafts and design, rather from new materials and technology.

A truly inspirational project. From many angles!

See more images and video of the car below, and the teaser that preceeded it. Not only an interesting story, but also an example of successful online marketing, with the video notching up over two million views in several weeks.

I read about this first on Geekology blog

Interactive Window In Diesel Milan Store

I just got back from Milan where together with Nanika we have completed the installation of an interactive window. The first phase of the installation is currently running, and comprises of two interactive sequences. Passers by can see their images ripple out infront of them across the two large screens that fill the window. The screens show the past second or so of time as series of frames captured by a hidden camera. The result is hypnotic. By approaching the camera and moving about in front of it you can create wonderful rippling patterns that oscolate down the screen. The window echoes the life of the facing square as it is affected by the herding tourists and locals. We will be updating the installation with new interactive experiences over the coming month. Check out the video below.

Diesel's Liquid Space Holographic Fashion Show

Just got back from Florence where I was a part of the team that put on this show. It was great fun! Enjoy!

Rock & Royal - Chandelier Art

Today Arno Coenen and Hans van Bentem of Rock and Royal give the ancient techniques of mosaics and chandelier design a new twist by creating photorealist mosaics and peculiarly shaped chandeliers.

Check out more of their works here.


Found on Trend Hunter

Search By Sketching

This is a fun new experimental service which lets you search and explore a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch.

It will not recognise what you are drawing - say a corporate logo or a face for example, which would be a very interesting way of searching (although if you are searching for a chair, whiy not just type in the word chair) - but rather examines the colours and composition, delivering you results that are similar to your sketch. Draw a big red circle and you will get cherries and strawberries. Draw a yellow rectangle under a blue one, and you'll get images of the sea.

This is a great way of searching for images that you want to match certain colour ways or moods. Possibly one day it could be a way of searching for that elusive image in your collection that was not tagged in a searchable way.

What ever it's practical applications, it is a fun tool to play with. Have a play here.

Thanks to Peter for the link.

UPDATE:
This is another nice search tool for Flckr - where you can search by predominant colour of the image. View Here.