Rider Spoke, Sydney, Blast Theory photo Alex Kershaw |
So far, everything in Rider Spoke seems very relaxed and low-key, radically dissimilar to Blast Theory’s last Sydney appearance back in 2002 with the immersive Gulf War-inspired gaming performance Desert Rain. Far from the extreme containment of Desert Rain’s high-stakes virtual world, Rider Spoke embraces the open air, allowing its participants to explore vistas of their own choosing and perhaps increase their fitness in the process.
On my first visit I ride left, following the sunshine and sparkling water. It’s a perfect summery Sydney day. The gentle voice of Ju Row Farr in my headphones lulls me into the experience, telling me small stories and making gentle suggestions as to what I might wish to do during the work’s duration. As I roll along the waterfront, I feel relaxed, safe, and contented. What could be more perfect than cycling for art on such a day? At the request of the recorded voice, I stop and record a description of myself, feeling for some reason the need to be entirely honest. What follows over the next hour is a gentle yet deeply fascinating ambulatory artwork, encouraging me to do no less than reconsider my entire physical and psychic relationships to the city in which I live.
The format of Rider Spoke is simple. The voice in my headphones encourages me to ride in any direction I wish, to discover the city for myself; to feel its wind on my face and breathe in its air; to use the cycling experience to take account of the city, and of my physical presence within it. At various points, I am asked to stop and offered the opportunity to record responses to given questions. Each of these acts of recording are referred to as ‘hiding’, and each time I ‘hide’ to reveal a personal story, the process is marked on the handlebar screen by the image of a flock of birds. The birds swirl outward, circling and returning, as if enfolding my story in their feathery embrace. There is never any sense of coercion or compulsion in these acts of hiding, simply calm requests for stories framed by the gift of other small anecdotes from Farr.
It’s clear that her stories have taken place in a different city, but as I listen to them while drifting along the Sydney streets they are woven into the local urban landscape. Farr’s intimate disclosures encourage an equivalent sharing, and the more stories I record, the more other stories I am able to find, generating a fascinating interpersonal map across the city streets, a map whose territory increases the more closely it is examined. As I lurk in nooks and crannies out of the flow of vehicle traffic, previous travellers on the street whisper in my earphones intimate reflections upon place, emotion and memory. Every secret story, wish, or promise is linked to every other, with the city reimagined as a web of story traffic. Every other bicycle rider that I pass feels like family—a fellow sharer of private whispers. Rider Spoke seems to propose a mode of urban navigation that borders on sacrament.
Rider Spoke, Sydney, Blast Theory photo Alex Kershaw |
Rider Spoke hints at the presence of deep social relations, and allows me to pass easily amongst them, mapping the city using a unique blend of pedal power and storytelling. The work suggests that perhaps such simple interventions might allow the city to care more deeply about the people who pass through it, about their stories and commitments to the future. As I ride ever onward, time begins to feel out of sync, and my travels somehow out of space. I traverse the grid of inner city streets, dodging cars and passing pedestrians, and as I travel I feel the weight of other times and places pressing upon me—fleeting experiences whose intensity of feeling suggestively marks these urban landscapes.
Rider Spoke, Sydney, Blast Theory photo Alex Kershaw |
The voice in my headphones informs me that my hour is up, and that I should return. As I unwillingly meander back to the beginning of my journey, Blast Theory has the final word. “I feel very close to you right now. Very close and a million miles away at the same time.” I weave through the milling crowds at Circular Quay and the voice continues: “There was something in the silence, but you spoke over it. You always do.” I return and leave my bicycle behind, but somehow I know that an important part of me has remained, enmeshed in a suspended web of whispered secrets.
Blast Theory, Rider Spoke, Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, British Council, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, February 6-15
RealTime issue #90 April-May 2009 pg. 32
© David Williams; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]