BMW has once again joined forces with the international art fair Frieze Los Angeles to showcase its bespoke designer cars. This year, the brand unveiled the BMW i5 Flow Nostokana, featuring electronically animated panels adorned with a South African tribal pattern.
Collaborating with BMW on the design is South African artist Esther Mahlangu, who named the creation after her firstborn son.
Renowned for her work with Ndbele designs, primarily found in South Africa’s Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, Mahlangu first collaborated with the German brand in 1991 when she painted a 525i, becoming the first African and female artist to sign an art car. Working directly on the all-white car, she completed the design in under a week.
For this latest project, Mahlangu teamed up with Stella Clarke, a Research Engineer at Open Innovations at the BMW Group. Clarke was inspired by the artist’s work years ago when the concept of color-changing cars was merely an idea.
The car features 1,349 sections of film, each independently controlled. Utilizing technology from E Ink, the panels contain millions of microcapsules capable of changing color through electrophoresis—the movement of molecules through a fluid or gel under an electric field. The result is a vibrant, dynamic artwork that adds a futuristic flair to the BMW.
Accompanying the visual display is a custom soundtrack featuring Mahlangu’s voice, the swish of the feather brushes she uses for painting, the sound of colored pencils on paper, and the acoustic signal from the 525i’s touchscreen. Engineered by BMW Group’s Creative Director of Sound, Renzo Vitale, the soundtrack intensifies along with the colors, creating a multisensory experience.
While this project is undoubtedly a labor of love, it showcases the evolving landscape of color-changing technology, as demonstrated by BMW and other automakers like Volkswagen. The fusion of international artwork with cutting-edge technology presents a compelling concept, signaling exciting possibilities for future collaborations.
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