Bikes Based on People’s Attempts to Sketch Them from Memory
They’re pretty terrible. But could you draw a car?
Close your eyes, and picture your car. Or a friend’s car. Or your favorite car, the one that was on that poster hanging above your bed in high school. Really study it, the headlights and greenhouse and wheels, each little detail that makes up the design. Now try to draw it.
That’s the idea behind the crowd-sourced Velocipedia project by Italian artist and designer Gianluca Gimini. Since 2009, he’s been carrying around a pen and challenging everyone—friends, family members, complete strangers—to draw a simple bicycle from memory. Over six years, Gimini has amassed more than 375 sketches from an array of participants, ranging from age 3 to 88, over seven different nationalities. Then, he did photorealistic 3-D renderings of the sketches.
The results are wonderful. Some are hilarious, some are impressive. Velocipedia occupies the space between art and science, both a creative endeavor and a sort of case study on how the human mind registers everyday items. And it makes you wonder: Given a pen and paper, with a Lamborghini Countach or Jaguar E-type in your mind’s eye, could you actually draw it?
Gianluca Gimini is currently seeking a sponsor to help print and exhibit this incredible work in its entirety. To see more Velocipedia or help with sponsorship, check out the artist's dedicated hub here.
