Beyond fulfilling a tangible need, how can virtual surface simulation contribute to the future of automotive design? An exploration of possible answers to this question with BASF’s Coatings Division led f°am to create AUVOTs, a set of virtual car sculptures that serve as canvases for the interplay of paint, light and body geometry in limitless variations.
Between Function and Speculation
Unprecedented in both their purpose and form, the AUVOTs transcend the boundary between the virtual and the real, fulfilling both functions while creating an altogether original object. Revealing a different character from all angles at a 1:1 scale, each AUVOT caters to concrete client needs and future design speculations in one shape with two prominent sides. One side resembles a traditional car model, allowing designers and clients to experience how the surface qualities of different colors change according to the light – how reflection wanders across the curves and edges of the car’s body geometry, or how the paint’s metal flakes shimmer underneath its transient glow.
The other side of each AUVOT takes on a more experimental shape; a form left purposely unfinished. In this way the sculptures offer a starting point for future design possibilities within the emerging field of commercial virtual object design – suggesting an object in a state of becoming, leaving room for potential elaboration. Freed from the conventional automotive functions of driving and transportation, the hybrid objects take on a more abstract task: to be inspected, considered, and judged by their covers – or rather, by their colors.
Concept and Design: f°am Studio
Client: BASF Coatings Division
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