Bike Box Locative project

Check out this video and the rest of the website for more information on the Bike Box project that took place last July.

http://www.sabinegruffat.com/BIKEBOX/?page_id=268

This is an interesting locative project that incorporates biking and technology (iphone) to create a way to explore the city in which people reside in. This is what their 'concept' section says about it:

Concept

If each stage of urban development adds another layer of brick and mortar to a city’s foundations, it also excises a layer of lived experience and memory. The bulldozer’s blade cuts both ways, after all, clearing the ground for something new as it covers up something old: old patterns of land use, as well as old sets of civic histories and personal connections. Sometimes, the history attached to a site is preserved. And sometimes, it is buried away, waiting to be uncovered.

To facilitate this historical retrieval, we propose a living archive: an ongoing interactive database of storytelling and sound art, recorded and disseminated via a locative media bicycle project. Partly inspired by community bike projects such as The Yellow Bikes in the U.S.A., Vélib in Paris, and Citybike in Vienna, and mobile art projects such as Banff New Media Institute’s “Tracklines” project, we would like to create a prototype of the Bike Box, a circulating bicycle library, oral history research center, and exhibition space. The purpose of the Bike Box is to give a city’s residents access to technology-enhanced bicycles in order to assist and encourage the exploration and interpretation of their urban environment. As avid cyclists, we believe a bicycle is the best vehicle for urban reconnaissance. A bike rider can cover a lot of ground while still maintaining the maneuverability and 360-degree viewpoint of someone on foot. Cycling allows for both slow contemplation and fast getaways.

As part of our preparatory work, we are inviting local land-use experts, historians, poets, artists and interpreters of all types to curate or contribute audio that is linked to sites of personal interest, historical significance, or social concern. These audio pieces will be geotagged and uploaded to the Bike Box database. In the end, we hope to create a continuous network of audio recordings: an aural map of the city that will illuminate the built environment as well as the hidden layers of history, memory, and narrative that underlie it. The Bike Box will be a way for residents and visitors alike to show each other around the city and to tell each other stories about the places they share.

~Karina Avellaneda~