Artist Marco Brambilla's F1-Inspired Short Gets Behind Ferrari's Wheel

Video artist Marco Brambilla shares his densely hypnotic and kaleidoscopic 3D film RPM, commissioned by Ferrari in celebration of their latest auto masterpiece, the 458 Spider, and premiering at Art Basel Miami tonight. Assembling footage shot on location over several months at the Italian Formula One Grand Prix in Monza with imagery from the Scuderia Ferrari archives and the artist’s own recordings, RPM is a visceral, cubist representation of a Formula One driver’s state of mind during a race. “I wanted to make a portrait of speed,” says Brambilla, a life-long F1 fan. “Something as subjective as can be, that explores the connection of man and machine and tests the limits of human endurance.” Featuring Möbius strip racetracks, wind-gritted teeth and a howling soundtrack of throttling engines, RPM accelerates in complexity with every turn of the circuit. “[The film is] always accelerating,” says the artist, “just building, no payoff, no win.” The New York-based Brambilla, who created the digital tableau vivant for Kanye West’s “Power” and the 3D videos Evolution and Civilization, wanted to push the limits of his own aesthetic vocabulary with this project. “This one is a little bit different in that we used 3D as an editing tool,” he says. “As the piece speeds up, the multi-planing—the foreground, mid-ground and background objects—all cycle through each other to create an acceleration in 3D space.”

Formula One Stats

An F1 driver loses on average 5 kilograms in weight during a Grand Prix race and burns approximately 600 calories.

Drivers' heart rates reach peaks of 190 beats per minute during a Grand Prix.

A typical F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, in a package weighing less than 550 kg—less than half the weight of a Mini.

When an F1 driver hits the brakes, he experiences deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a brick wall at 300kmph.

An F1 car can go from 0 to 160 kph and back in 0 to 4 seconds. During the 2004 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the record top speed for an F1 car was set at over 360 kph.

Top F1 pit crews can refuel and change tires in around 3 seconds.

An F1 car generates enough downforce that it could drive inverted at top speed. In a street course race, this is enough suction to lift manhole covers, which have to be welded down before each race.

Scuderia Ferrari, founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1932, is the oldest and most successful F1 team in history with a record of 15 drivers’ championships and 16 constructors’ championships.