“Run towards the noise” – MINI contemplates the future of mobility and personalisation in London

Date
28 June 2016

Last week MINI curated an evening that explored the future of personalisation at its BMW Group Future Experience at London’s Roundhouse. The future gazing exhibition unveiled three Vision Vehicles from within the BMW Group – BMW, Rolls Royce and MINI. The MINI Vision 100, is a concept car that offers “a unique driving experience” and personalisation technology.

The initiative was launched with an evening dedicated to “Future Shapers” who offered pointers as to what form the sharing economy and technology might play in the years to come. The evening kicked off with a presentation by Anders Warming, head of design at MINI, who explained the history of the iconic car and why the manufacturer was keen to explore what the future may hold. “We want to look forward to the next 100 years,” said the designer before unveiling the Vision 100. “Mobility is becoming the issue, rather than the car. The personal relationship someone has with a vehicle will be crucial for the car of the future.”

The Vision 100 has all the hallmarks of the MINI with typically distinguished proportions and a clever use of space to create a compact car. Where it departs from the familiar is the interface with the driver. The appearance will digitally adapt to each driver with preset preferences allowing personalisation. The position of the steering wheel, seats and pedals are also realigned to suit the driver’s gait. Digital intelligence built into the on-board computer and controlled by the cylindrical “Cooperiser” installed on the dash, will know the preference of the driver and will adjust the atmospheric settings in the car but also suggest routes that appeal to the driver or places that they may wish to visit.

Futurologist Magnus Lindkvist took to the stage to speculate on how society is changing and what we might expect in the future. Opening with the statement that “it is quite possible that the first person who will live to be 200 might already have been born” he explored the notion that we are moving from a world of 200 or so countries to one of 200 or so megacities – most of which will be in China. As strains increase on resources and space, it will be down to intelligent design and efficiencies in order for us to carry out our daily lives. He dispelled the myth that robots and artificial intelligence will take over the most menial jobs using Moravec’s Paradox which states that the easier something is for a human to do, the harder it is for a robot – illustrated with videos of charmingly inept attempts at robotics. The future he painted will be shaped by the desire and innovation driven by human needs and material scarcity. He concluded by quoting Michelle Obama, asking designers and future thinkers to “run towards the noise.”

What followed was a panel discussion that focused on the sharing economy. Taking part in the discussion was Anders Warming, James Scott chief operations officer of The Collective, Raban Lachman founder of Pley and psychologist Simon Hampton. James discussed the benefits of the shared economy applied to the capacity that we have in housing. “The sharing economy is creating efficiency. It’s taking a commodity and sweating it,” he said. “What if we apply these sharing ideas to the NHS or the housing crisis? We can get extra value out of the assets we have.” Lachman also highlighted the concern of waste pointing out a prosaic but relevant example of material redundancy: “The average time that a drill is used across its product life is 12 minutes,” he explained. “But most people own one.” Simon Hampton concurred that humans are socially predeposed to ownership and that sharing is a learned behaviour. “The sharing economy will be stripped back to something Neolithic,” he said. “People need objects.” Explaining how this applies to MINI’s view of the future, Anders stressed that the Vision 100 was part of an investigation into “the emotional attachment to a utility.”

Closing the event were presentations by multi-media artist Margot Bowman and audio-visual director Marcus Lyall, both of whom were asked to create new artworks on the theme of personalisation and whose videos can be seen below.

The path to the future is vague but accelerating. In Camden last week, MINI let its take on the future be known and placed the individual at the heart of the solution. The sharing economy can work so long as there is ownership of the experience – the Vision 100 is a glimpse of how one part of this may be achieved if we run towards the noise.

The BMW Group Future Experience, showcasing MINI’s Vision Vehicle is took place at the Roundhouse in London last week. Visit www.mininext100.co.uk or @MINIUK for more information. #MINI #NEXT100

Share Article

About the Author

Sponsored Content

This article was sponsored by a brand, so is marked up by us as Sponsored Content. To understand more about how we work with brands and sponsorships, please head over to our Work With Us page.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.