olaf mooij: braincar

the ‘braincar’ by olaf mooij image © gé hirdes

‘braincar’ is a mobile sculpture created by rotterdam artist olaf mooij, featuring a large brain-like extrusion on the back of a modified used car. by day, the vehicle captures and stores images and video from its travels. by night, this footage is remixed, projected from within the brain sculpture and visible from the outside.

mooij’s body of work involves the alteration of motor vehicles, in pieces that express the nearly psychological connection between drivers and their cars, or that convert vehicles into a kind of mobile sculpture architecture, as in ‘DJ mobile‘ or the sofa-like ‘chesterfield car’. with ‘braincar’, mooij questioned what it would be like if instead the car itself could experience with a kind of consciousness its own passage through spacetime.

video of the ‘braincar’ ‘dreaming’ at night

3/4 rear view image © olaf mooij

night view image © olaf mooij

view of the ‘brain’ at night image © uwe weber

additional night view image © uwe weber

the car on the highway image © eric fecken

design process: ‘braincar’ collage

design process: ‘braincar’ model

design process: computer renderings

building the ‘braincar’

shaping the brain

view of vehicle almost completed