Art of the Transformer

Trees may grow in Brooklyn, but a car grows in Paris. In March, Citroën unveils the Totemobile, a million-dollar-plus robotic sculpture that’s sure to drive potential customers to its Champs-Élysées showroom. The venerable French automaker gave free conceptual rein to artist Chico MacMurtrie and his team at Brooklyn’s Amorphic Robot Works. MacMurtrie wasted little time in picking as his subject the company's iconic DS, which he’d long admired as "the original lowrider" because of its revolutionary hydraulic suspension system. But his version of a 1963 DS does more than lift a few inches off the ground. In a feat of telescoping contortionism, the 5-ton sculpture’s aluminum and inflatable parts unfurl, rising to a full height of 60 feet.

About 45 people worked on the project, shaping, welding, programming, and fine-tuning the contraption and its more than 50 servomotors and linear actuators. The Totemobile is scheduled to transform hourly for at least the next four years. Need more morphing art?

In May, MacMurtrie will debut his new inflatable architectural body at the MU exhibition space in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

– Todd Jatras

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