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Google Asked Californian Artist to Doodle Their Self-Driving Car and Here Are the Results

Back in June, Google asked California-based artists to send in pieces of art based on a pre-defined (yet very broad) theme: “my community, my neighbors.” Ten works were then going to be chosen and printed on the doors of the Google self-driving cars that will be roaming through Mountain View shortly.
Google car "My community, my neighbors" project 13 photos
Photo: Google
Google "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project resultsGoogle "My community, my neighbors" project results
Given the cartoonish nature of the Google car’s aspect, the drawings sent in were just as serious and resembled reality in the same way the Google vehicle resembles a normal car: barely. That being said, they do reflect a light, feel-good side of local communities that’s not always apparent to an outsider.

We’re guessing the idea had great success, as the same project has been announced for Austin, Texas, and will probably continue to spread as Google’s car starts testing in more and more locations across the country. That means we’ll soon get more pictures of different neighborhoods painted in candid colors by their residents, and we can’t see anything wrong with that.

The idea of mixing cars and art isn’t a new one, and you need to look no further than BMW and their world-famous “art cars” as proof of that, a project that saw some of the world’s greatest artists of their time do a complete makeover on more or less iconic BMW models. Names like Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Sandro Chia or Roy Lichtenstein were all involved in creating the BMW art car collection that now numbers 17 units, the last one being signed by Jeff Koons.

In other (older) news, another Google car - the kind that takes photographs for Google Streetview - was painted, but this one might not have enjoyed the process all that much. The poor car was supposed to catch some “before and after” shots of the streets of Spanish city Buñol during the La Tomatina festival. You can see how that turned out here (spoiler: not very well for the car, nor Google).
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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