From: millimilli@milliechen.com
Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] PED
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:15:05 -0400
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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