Game Art: Coll.eo's "CARJACKED (After Julian Opie)" (2012)
The fifth automobile in the ongoing CARJACKED project, a game-like 1997 M3, was developed by Julian Opie's avatars:
"Julian Opie’s BMW Art Car is the latest offspring of his seminal series Imagine You Are Driving. The image of an empty expanse of road disappearing into the distance recurs in several paintings (1993-4), sculptures (1993 and 2004), large vinyl prints (1997), screen prints (1998-99), and videos (1993)." [...]
Most racing games are devoid of human presence. Pedestrians are not simulated because pedestrians do not matter. Moreover, the simulation turns the human operator into a machine. The virtual car and the human driver are united in symbiosis: the player turns into a cyborg performing the imaginary act of driving with plastic steering wheel. But where are we going? We are on a road to a virtual nowhere. We “travel” through synthetic landscapes made of bland blue sky and featureless green fields. Is Opie’s iconography truly “utopian”, as suggested by Manchester? We disagree. These boring artificial landscapes are utterly dystopic. A facade of matte colors masquerading hellish, desolate, polluted wastelands. The world that cars created. Computer games do not offer an escape from ‘mundane’ everyday realities: after all, they are permeated by the same ideology that dominates the “Real”.(Coll.eo)
Additional details about Opie's BMW Art Car can be found here.
The video of Opie's M3 BMW Art Car is available here.
LINK: Coll.eo
Previously: FRAMING GAYS IN THE MILITARY, DISCIPLES
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti