Re: [-empyre-] PED

[millimilli@milliechen.com]

Hi Tim. I'll give some background on PED:

The PED collective (Paul Vanouse, Andrew Johnson, myself, and since  
2006, Warren Quigley, Joan Linder) has been operating since 2001 as a  
pseudo service bureau and info/excer-tainment outlet from which  
viewer/participants may embark on free, talking-bicycle lecture tours.  
 Each site-specific instance of PED provides a different menu of  
thematic tours, each with a tailored audio broadcast system and  
particular routes to follow.  The bicycles are outfitted with an  
interactive audio system, either pedal-activated (i.e. as the  
participants pedal they hear the pre-recorded lecture, and when they  
stop the lecture ceases) or as live broadcast (utilizing strap-on  
walkie-talkies with one-way transmission from the PED service bureau),  
depending on what the specific situation calls for. The mandate of PED  
is to expand the parameters of performance by both invisibly  
performing a service bureau and orchestrating participants to  
unwittingly perform as they conspicuously ride through the city on the  
talking-bicycles, disseminating information by broadcasting the  
lectures. We propose that PED bicycles occupy utopian territory as a  
viable form of public communication and democratic address.

We've predominantly used the pedal-activated technique, albeit altered  
greatly from site to site. In the first PEDs in Buffalo, in Belfast,  
Hamilton, etc., we stayed with the individually-equipped bikes where  
participants would be riding out into the city as individuals. In  
Chongqing, China, we adapted this system to incorporate multiple  
riders, all pedaling (2 to move the unit, 1 to activate the audio and  
steer); we built a series of 3-bike machines, welded together to  
operate in unison and each machine pulling a thematically-designed  
float (this served as reference to the hand-pulled carts that are  
still highly visible and to the incredible collision of ancient and  
new technologies that co-exist, uneasily, on the streets of cities in  
China).

Recently, this past winter in Rio de Janeiro, we responded to the use  
of walkie-talkies as a form of security and crowd control and took  
advantage of its use to mix live broadcast (from the hidden  
surveillance/broadcast post, the PED broadcaster had visual access to  
riders for a portion of the route) with pre-recorded.

The Chongqing and Rio situations were challenging for PED - 'security'  
issues, defined very differently in each place, threw up some  
interesting, and at times very frustrating, blocks.

In Rio, it was strongly impressed on us that we should worry about the  
security of our persons, as privileged riders (the borrowed bikes were  
spiffy) and as potential security reps (we were told we might be  
mistaken for police because of the harness outfits that our riders  
wore). The rides were therefore automatically a collective experience  
as no one was allowed to ride off on their own. We always had at least  
one other rider with us, a security officer hired by the organization,  
even when just testing the routes prior to running the tours.

In Chongqing, the 'security' came in the form of an 11th hour  
censoring. The date of the performance event, a proposed parade of the  
bike-cart machines through the streets of Chongqing, coincidentally  
fell close to the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. We were  
working with 38 art school students, riding bicycles, broadcasting  
public address - you can do the math. Although we were hyper aware  
from the beginning about avoiding direct engagement of controversial /  
sensitive topics, the content of our broadcasts became moot as the  
visual representation we became was too loud for comfort.

Millie

Quoting timothy murray <tcm1@cornell.edu>:

> > Thanks so much, Millie, for this fascinating overview of your work.  
> >  I'm particularly interested to hear more about the relationship of  
> >  cultural transgression and your public collaborative projects.   
> > Would you be willing to elaborate on this in relation, for   
> > instance, to a description of your PED and how its practice of   
> > "transgression" varied from place to place, US to China?
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Tim
>
> --
> Timothy Murray
> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
> Director of Graduate Studies in Film and Video
> Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
> 285 Goldwin Smith Hall
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York  14853
>
> office: 607-255-4086
> e-mail: tcm1@cornell.edu
>
>
>
>
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