Tag Archives: studies

BMW

First design research for Julie Mehretu’s BMW Art Car revealed. World premiere on the Centre Pompidou Paris in May 2024. Her BMW M Hybrid V8 to race on the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. Announcement of the worldwide driver workforce and beginning quantity. Workshops with artists in varied African cities.

New York/Munich. Julie Mehretu presents her first design research for the twentieth BMW Art Car. For this challenge, the internationally famend artist combines her creative work with a private enthusiasm for automotive design and pace. She interprets dynamism into type and applies one in all her monumental motifs from a two-dimensional image aircraft onto a three-dimensional industrially designed object. In the course of this artistic course of, the BMW M Hybrid V8 racing automotive prototype turns into the canvas of Mehretu’s multi-layered artwork and the following addition to the legendary BMW Art Car Collection. The twentieth BMW Art Car will have a good time its official world premiere on the Centre Pompidou in Paris on May 21, 2024, earlier than competing a couple of weeks later within the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 15/16.

Fusion of picture motif and racing automotive creates artwork on wheels.
For the design of the twentieth BMW Art Car, Julie Mehretu makes use of the color and type vocabulary of an current large-format portray from a newer collection of works: obscured pictures, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and Mehretu’s iconic gestural markings give her design an summary visible type. She transfers the ensuing picture motif as a high-resolution {photograph} onto the car’s contours utilizing a 3D mapping method. This creates the distinctive creative foiling with which the BMW M Hybrid V8 will compete within the Le Mans race. Mehretu on her course of: “It wasn’t until after going to the 24 Hours race in Daytona last year that the idea of how to approach the BMW Art Car really crystallised. I was thinking about Frank Stella’s grid and how this could also be a shout-out to former BMW Art Car artists. And I kept thinking of this painting in my studio that I had just finished and the model of the Art Car was in my studio and I thought maybe we can try to have the car move through this painting.”

For the primary time, Julie Mehretu, whose work might be introduced this 12 months inside a significant retrospective on the Palazzo Grassi in Venice from March 17, is working with BMW on a three-dimensional format. The interaction of the surfaces and geometry of the car creates a remix of parts of her portray and opens up new views for the artist in her artistic course of. “The artistic play of what you are able to do on this new three-dimensional house and what number of imaginations and innovations are performed out to construct it’s extremely instructive. It is not only the automotive itself however the designers and their deliberations in addition to and foremost the drivers and their needs and aspirations which make it turn into this place of goals the place portray, conceptual artwork, aerodynamics, pace and aesthetics can take part,” says Mehretu.

In accordance with the laws of the FIA, the 3D model of the paintings can solely be utilized to the BMW M Hybrid V8 with a movie wrap. For this, Julie Mehretu is working carefully with the German Race Spirit workforce led by Manuel Eberl and Gertraud Brenninger to design the twentieth BMW Art Car. Race Spirit was already concerned in realising the design created by Jeff Koons for the seventeenth BMW Art Car.

Julie Mehretu working on her 20th BMW Art Car. Photo: André Josselin and Tina Paffen © BMW AG

From the museum to the race monitor – and again once more.
In holding with the lengthy custom of the BMW Art Car Collection, the artistically designed car might be introduced to the general public for the primary time in an internationally famend museum on May 21. As with the world premieres of the BMW Art Cars by Roy Lichtenstein (1977) and Jeff Koons (2010), the disclosing will happen on the Centre Pompidou in Paris. That identical week, the paintings might be a part of this system of the Concorso d’Eleganza on the Villa d’Este in Cernobbio (May 24-26).

The shut connection between artwork and motorsport can be an integral a part of the historical past of the BMW Art Car Collection. The very first BMW Art Car, designed by Alexander Calder in 1975, made its dynamic debut on the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. As the twentieth BMW Art Car, Julie Mehretu’s car will compete at Le Mans with beginning quantity 20 and might be pushed by BMW works drivers Sheldon van der Linde (RSA), Robin Frijns (NED) and René Rast (GER) within the 24 Hours of Le Mans from June 15 to 16, 2024. The artist may also design the racing fits through which they are going to compete at Le Mans.

“The prospect of competing in a BMW Art Car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is an additional incentive for the entire M Motorsport team to prepare the BMW M Hybrid V8 as perfectly as possible for this big stage,” says Franciscus van Meel, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW M GmbH. “In the a centesimal 12 months of the race’s existence and 25 years after BMW’s final victory at Le Mans, profitable there with a BMW Art Car could be the best attainable success for all of us.”

Following its race at Le Mans, the twentieth BMW Art Car may also turn into an exhibit that might be introduced to the general public in museums and on artwork platforms worldwide. However, Julie Mehretu’s method goes far past the car as a stand-alone creative work.

Workshops with younger creatives in quite a few African cities.
A central element of the challenge is the PanAfricanTranslocal Media Workshop Series on the African continent, which is able to proceed the collaboration between Julie Mehretu and BMW in 2025. Together with Mehret Mandefro, Emmy-nominated producer, author and co-founder of the Realness Institute, which works to strengthen the media ecosystem throughout Africa, the artist will host workshops in eight African cities over the course of 9 months to supply artists with an area for encounters, change and collaboration. The outcomes of the workshops will then be introduced on the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town – along with the twentieth BMW Art Car. An necessary companion for the conception of the programme is the artist residency Denniston Hill in Upstate New York, based in 2004 by Julie Mehretu, Lawrence Chua and Paul Pfeiffer.

Julie Mehretu was unanimously chosen to design the twentieth BMW Art Car in 2018 by a jury of high-ranking representatives of the worldwide artwork world. The panel consists of famend curators and museum administrators from varied nations, together with Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London; and Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator, High Line Art, New York. Like all of the artists concerned within the creation of the BMW Art Car Collection since 1975 – together with Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, César Manrique, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Cao Fei and John Baldessari, along with these already talked about – Julie Mehretu was given unrestricted artistic freedom within the realization of her concepts for the most recent car of this globally distinctive assortment.

The BMW Group’s Cultural Engagement with unique updates and deeper insights into its world initiatives will be adopted on Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.

Science

Has NASA Stopped Exploring The Ocean? The Myth Debunked

NASA oceanic research abound. The NASA Ocean Physics program makes use of satellites and sub-orbital information to check the ocean’s position in our local weather, accounting for sea degree rise, ocean dynamics, and the way the ocean finally interacts with our planet. The SUBSEA project, which requires holding your breath to spell out — Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog — makes use of robots underwater to simulate exploring planets with comparable circumstances. It additionally researches areas like the nice and cozy springs flowing from an underwater volcano off Hawaii Island to check “conditions scientists believe exist on certain moons in the outer solar system, which may have the right combination of factors to support life.” 

And when it isn’t exploring our oceans, the NASA Ocean Worlds Exploration Program (OWEP) research ocean worlds within the outer photo voltaic system to evaluate their viability for hosting easy extraterrestrial life, just like the beforehand talked about bizarre ones we discover on Earth on the very backside of the ocean. It’s all a tad extra concerned than making a YouTube video with captions and a robotic voice. But sarcastically, one thing did finish regarding the ocean and NASA in 1978. That’s when it launched Seasat, its first devoted ocean satellite tv for pc, which lasted in Earth’s orbit for about 105 days earlier than short-circuiting. So that did finish momentarily, however there are actually a number of different satellites doing the identical factor proper above us. Nice strive, YouTube.

Opinion

Matt Prior: ULEZ Scrappage Scheme Could be Better Utilized

The effectiveness of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has been a subject of debate, with no clear consensus even among scientific studies. So, it’s not surprising that the expanded version, now the world’s largest such zone, is not receiving unanimous support.

There are several arguments against it, some of which I can understand to varying degrees:

  1. It may not make a significant overall difference, considering that London’s air quality is already improving and more polluting cars will naturally be phased out over time.
  2. Many people don’t particularly want to drive around London but have limited alternatives.
  3. It could disproportionately affect those who can least afford it, especially shift workers.
  4. If the goal is truly to improve air quality, other measures such as banning domestic fireplaces and wood burners could be more effective. However, these measures may not bring in revenue for Transport for London.
  5. Applying the ULEZ to those visiting Heathrow airport could result in significant costs for holidaymakers.
  6. The inclusion of motorcycles in the ULEZ may be seen as pointless.
  7. If authorities didn’t want us to drive diesel cars, they shouldn’t have encouraged their use for the past two decades.
  8. Ultimately, some argue that the ULEZ feels like an attack on personal freedoms.

On the other hand, there is a compelling counter-argument to the issue of personal freedoms, questioning whether we should have the freedom to harm the health of others, particularly infants.

With conflicting viewpoints and no consensus, the ULEZ appears to be a divisive topic, potentially impacting votes on the peripheries of London. Interestingly, the protesters causing damage to ULEZ infrastructure, including about 500 cameras according to the BBC, don’t seem to be as unpopular as other recent dissenters. Nevertheless, the ULEZ is now in operation.

A group of people hold up a Ukranian flag in front of three parked Peugeot ambulances they will donate to Ukraine