The 1965 Citroën DS is a beautiful, inspiring car that recalls an age when
French automobile manufacturing had reached its apogee. The car’s swept-back
body is arguably one of the most elegant designs of the 20th century.
Chico MacMurtrie, a Brooklyn artist, took things a step further and built a real life transformer out of one of the Gallic beauties.
That may sound ridiculous, but the thing actually works. He started with a real Citroën DS and turned it into something altogether different. One moment there’s a gorgeous bare-metal-finish DS sitting there, its shiny headlamp buckets gleaming, and the next it’s slowly morphing into a fantastic 60-foot-tall shape that looks like something between a lanky human-bot and a metal tree.
Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works Totemobile’s skin
is all Citroën, made from a real 1965 Citroën DS.
Chico MacMurtrie, a Brooklyn artist, took things a step further and built a real life transformer out of one of the Gallic beauties.
That may sound ridiculous, but the thing actually works. He started with a real Citroën DS and turned it into something altogether different. One moment there’s a gorgeous bare-metal-finish DS sitting there, its shiny headlamp buckets gleaming, and the next it’s slowly morphing into a fantastic 60-foot-tall shape that looks like something between a lanky human-bot and a metal tree.
That it also looks like a space age totem pole is reflected in its name,
Totemobile. When Mr. MacMurtrie was building it in 2007, he had to remove some
of the roof beams from the converted Red Hook church he uses as a workshop for
Amorphic Robot Works. Fully extended, the animatronic sculpture stretched up
into the peak of the tall building’s roofline.
“Our roof peaked at 45 feet, and it was ultimately 60 feet tall,” he said. “It shows really well in very big spaces, but it’s not meant to be shown outdoors or in small spaces.”
When in car form, Totemobile’s lovely French bodywork hides, according to Mr. MacMurtrie’s Web site, “nearly 50 interdependent machines of varying aesthetic and functional purpose.” A series of electric linear actuators initiate movement from its car form to the fully extended sculpture. The robot is equipped with four laser shields, although they don’t, in Decepticon fashion, zap intruders. Instead, they control emergency stop systems, which freeze Totemobile’s movement if a spectator somehow gets too close to it. A computer system receiving information from more than 100 sensors tracks the machine’s movement as it rises into its final statuesque pose, an automated air-filled spire blooming above it.
Here’s how Mr. MacMurtrie describes Totemobile’s evolution from car to robotic form on his Web site:
“I had been saving parts to turn my Nissan longbed into a dog monkey, a character I’d created, and the drawings from that idea inspired a television commercial Citroën made,” he said, adding that the automaker then asked him to propose a display idea for their cavernous showroom. “The Citroën DS was the first lowrider, and being that I’m half Mexican, I wanted to make the car do something that was metaphorically different than what a lowrider does. It grows up instead of lowering.”
Mr. MacMurtrie said that Totemobile was set up at the Shanghai Biennial over the winter. Now, it’s in storage in Amsterdam, awaiting its return to Paris this year.
Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works Fully extended,
Totemobile stands 60 feet tall.
“Our roof peaked at 45 feet, and it was ultimately 60 feet tall,” he said. “It shows really well in very big spaces, but it’s not meant to be shown outdoors or in small spaces.”
When in car form, Totemobile’s lovely French bodywork hides, according to Mr. MacMurtrie’s Web site, “nearly 50 interdependent machines of varying aesthetic and functional purpose.” A series of electric linear actuators initiate movement from its car form to the fully extended sculpture. The robot is equipped with four laser shields, although they don’t, in Decepticon fashion, zap intruders. Instead, they control emergency stop systems, which freeze Totemobile’s movement if a spectator somehow gets too close to it. A computer system receiving information from more than 100 sensors tracks the machine’s movement as it rises into its final statuesque pose, an automated air-filled spire blooming above it.
Here’s how Mr. MacMurtrie describes Totemobile’s evolution from car to robotic form on his Web site:
As the familiar structure visually decomposes into its constituent geometric parts, each part becomes a more organic version of the original, and eventually lends its decomposing body to support the life of the new organism it harbors.Heady stuff, to be sure, although its funding came from more a materialistic source. Designed for display in Citroën’s showroom at 42 Champs-Élysées in Paris, Totemobile started as an idea Mr. MacMurtrie had to convert his rusty pickup truck into an anthropomorphic transformer.
The form of the totem pole is narrative in nature. As the sculpture rises, multiple narratives unfold. In the collision, negotiation, and compromises reached between the organic and the inorganic aspects of itself, narratives suggesting entropy, domination, transformation, mortality and the nature of strength are exposed.
“I had been saving parts to turn my Nissan longbed into a dog monkey, a character I’d created, and the drawings from that idea inspired a television commercial Citroën made,” he said, adding that the automaker then asked him to propose a display idea for their cavernous showroom. “The Citroën DS was the first lowrider, and being that I’m half Mexican, I wanted to make the car do something that was metaphorically different than what a lowrider does. It grows up instead of lowering.”
Mr. MacMurtrie said that Totemobile was set up at the Shanghai Biennial over the winter. Now, it’s in storage in Amsterdam, awaiting its return to Paris this year.
The idea of organically themed mechanical contraptions touches the rest of
Mr. MacMurtrie’s work as well. In September, he says he plans to display a huge,
articulating architectural structure – operated by pneumatic, mechanical and
computer controls – inside Red Hook’s Pioneer Works. At the same time, he said
he would unveil his robotic church, which is a collection of 85 robots and
machines he’s built from the 1990s until today, all assembled under one roof.
The automated sculptures will perform a percussion-dominated robotic church
service of sorts in his workshop, which Mr. MacMurtrie said was originally a
church for Scandinavian fishermen in the 19th century.
Already taking shape, the college of robot clergy, taking up positions around the edges of the main room, are poised to play various unique percussion instruments – one uses dripping water for effect, another plays a huge xylophone, another has a body that resembles the innards of a piano and plays itself.
“The sculptures are all set up kind of like saints, and they will rise up as they play percussion instruments,” he said. “For the mechanically inclined person, they’ll find representations of just about every mechanism that’s ever been made: hydraulic and pneumatic and gear driven. What I’m tying to do is get people to walk away with a physical effect of the sounds and the overall effect of being in the church.”
Already taking shape, the college of robot clergy, taking up positions around the edges of the main room, are poised to play various unique percussion instruments – one uses dripping water for effect, another plays a huge xylophone, another has a body that resembles the innards of a piano and plays itself.
“The sculptures are all set up kind of like saints, and they will rise up as they play percussion instruments,” he said. “For the mechanically inclined person, they’ll find representations of just about every mechanism that’s ever been made: hydraulic and pneumatic and gear driven. What I’m tying to do is get people to walk away with a physical effect of the sounds and the overall effect of being in the church.”
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