2 x 10 x 3 meters of art in motion?! Is it a bird, is it a plane..? No, it is the newest public transport campaign initiative from The City Of Copenhagen!

In 2018 a new public transport net will be completed in Copenhagen. Until then, the city transport system faces a lot of changes, reconstruction and both literal and physical bumps in the road. The route towards a seamless and cohesive public transport net that binds together the S-train, Metro and busses is filled with twists and turns. So to accommodate the commuters, whose patience may be tested a little during the turmoil, The City of Copenhagen decided to sprinkle a little joy their way.

Analogue timemachine graphics in the making

One of many cool and fun initiatives, is The Art Bus Project in which a postgraduate group of students from The Danish Design School did a week-long workshop resulting in the creation of two beautiful – fully functional, in service and advertisement free – busses, that are currently roaming the streets of Copenhagen. The project is developed and executed by ArtRebels, who invited artists Mette Geisler Dragelykke and Christian Elovara Dinesen to teach, guide and inspire the students during the workshop and director Simon Weyhe documented the process. The videos can be seen on bus-screens around town and the full-length version online (above) with music by producer Ormen.

Psychedelic inspiration and drafts

The art bus that adorns busline 1A entitled The Timemachine is a vehicle for the commuters to travel through time and space. The artwork is a timemachine abstraction that visualizes the transport system of the future through its technical and mechanical aesthetic. The other art bus, the one on busline 3A entitled Out Of This World, is a psychedelic landscape in which the passenger can dream away, wonder, imagine and thereby achieve an out-of-body travel experience. Inspired by the qualities of the prism and its ability to distort reality into fragments, the artwork creates a similar effect to illustrate the pulsating city and its eternal changes.

For four weeks (until April 9th) The Art Busses will function as artworks in motion, moving through the city, visualizing a public transport net in transformation. The purpose of the project is to provide the commuters with a different view of the transport experience, that shifts the focus from the difficulties that the development creates, to the positive changes they bring.

Bus 1A is by design students Amalie Eve Wulff, Dennis Nicolai Andersen, Christine Bohn-Willeberg, Katrine Marie Nielsen, Stinne Marie Wilhelmsen and bus 3A is by Sara Lillie Gornitzka, Sanne Christensen, Nina Cecilie Born, Kathrin Stumpe, Louise Gronemann, Nicoline Mørup Christensen.