Working title: Big Mammoth? (as pun on Boston Dynamics’ Big Dog) Theun Karelse - June, Juli 2016

Topic: Designing a concept car as a case-study to expand upon the line of thought emerging from the Machine Wilderness programme.

Outline: An in depth exploration of machine wilderness design strategies and issues. A thought experiment centered around the concept car phenomenon which is well established in the history of prototyping.

A car - like an organism - is an expression of its habitat. When making a visual survey of concept-car-art it is striking to see how they populate asphalt desert landscapes. Perhaps unwittingly these are statements about the relationship between cars and their environment. This relationship is studied by ecologists, poets and artists. This prototype therefore starts from a transdisciplinary approach, not in the context of a desert, but a biodiverse European landscape and within a longterm view of interacting populations surfing collectively on the geological and environmental currents that carry them.

As a starting point I propose looking at former mega-fauna of the European continent, whose ecological niches may be vacant. The Mammoth might be an interesting model-organism because of its carrying capacity and range.