For a car company such as Mazda that prides itself on creativity in design, a presence at the world’s premier design event is a must. But Mazda has taken it a step further in 2013 with MACS, the Mazda Con-temporary Space.
Located in the stylish Zona Tortona area of Milan which acts as the hub for the city’s Design Week, MACS is a space dedicated to contemporary art and design. But to make MACS unique to Mazda everything that’s on show must feature elements of the firm’s design language, KODO, the Soul of Motion.
Although MACS has been open since January and hosted a number of exhibitions, including one held by a local college, for Milan Design Week something very different was put on show.
Directed by respected Italian artist Giuliana Cuneaz the Forma Fluens (Fluency in Shape) exhibition employs 3D and HD video installations allied with painted screens, sculptures, photographs and drawings to take viewers on a virtual journey through imaginary and in some cases magical future scapes.
Cuneaz says: “Forma Fluens is a metamorphic landscape, constructed and modelled on the regenerative kinetics of subatomic molecules undergoing endless change.” The result is stunning video sculptures of a virtual world depicting a fairy tale carriage, archaeological finds, and even plant forms growing and hybridizing.
The artist adds: “My desire to delve into and capture these types of dynamic transformation processes has much in common with the Mazda approach, which goes beyond merely designing cars. It’s about using the KODO theme to create models where aesthetics and technology are united into an overall design that achieves new levels of harmony and emotion.”
