Earlier this week at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei unveiled her futuristic design for the latest BMW art car, a sleek non-reflective all black rendition of the M6 GT3 race car that seems straight out of one of Cao’s animations or virtual reality. The car design is accompanied by a video about a time traveling spiritualist and its own augmented reality app of colorful lights. Cao Fei’s car is the 18th in BMW’s art car series, first launched in 1975. For the past three years, Cao has developed her project via excursions to BMW’s headquarters to work with the company’s designers and engineers and an extended visit to its Liaoning Province plant in Tiexi. She also joined driver Cyndie Allemannin for a race in Switzerland in 2015. “To me, light represents thoughts. As the speed of thoughts cannot be measured, the #18 Art Car questions the existence of the boundaries of the human mind. We are entering a new age, where the mind directly controls objects and where thoughts can be transferred, such as unmanned operations and artificial intelligence,” Cao says. Her project will be featured at BMW’s Shanghai experience centre this summer, virtually presented at Art Basel this month, and a racing version of the car will hit the track of Macau’s FIA FT World Cup on November 17-19. Cao Fei’s digital avatar China Tracy may or may not be at the wheel.
