When it comes to really inspired ways to promote new car, the Art Car initiative by BMW, as its been generally known since its debut in the 1970s, has few peers when it comes to sheer effectiveness. Begun in 1975 by French racer and art aficionado Hervé Poulain and BMW racing chief Jochen Neerpasch, the program got underway in 1975 when Alexander Calder crafted a unique finish for Poulain’s competition BMW 3.0 CSL coupe. Since then, participating artists in the ongoing program have various numbered Michael Jagamara Nelson, Esther Mahlangu and most recently, John Baldessari in 2016. The cars are visually stunning and now, BMW is coming up with a new way for their fans to appreciate them.
BMW has just revealed a new collaboration with the advance mobile app Acute Art, which caters to those who love fine expression. Using AR, which stands for augmented reality, the app will bring the BMW Art Car Collection into the digital world for the first time. The first 10 cars will debut on the Acute Art app by the end of the month, with the subsequent nine Art Cars being integrated next at two-week intervals. Each car will be transformed into an exact digital reproduction, with Acute Art scanning each car using a photogrammetry methodology to create every line and curve of the vehicle precisely. Each car is thus transformed into a piece of digital artwork. Last night, in honor of the first moon landing, the Smithsonian Channel demonstrated how technicians similarly scanned the Apollo 11 capsule to create a virtual tour of the historic spacecraft, inside and out.
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