onionbagblog

We are the City, we are the traffic.

Careful, Comrade. You’ll soon be returning to the cycling warrior persona from previous Critical Mass monthly roll-outs.

Which may not be a bad move.

But the last Friday of the month underneath Waterloo Bridge could wait. Saturday morning was all about the always ACE Museum of London and the We are the City bicycling exhibition.

Chapeau!

I’m always weary whenever artistic elements try and cash in on cycling. It’s a way of life, not an exercise in proving your posing potential. But We are the City just about gets it right with a wonderful use of online mapping and data representation.

Beware the Big Brother State, beware the Boris Bike that is geo-tagged to capture your every ride around the city. But if it’s all done in the name of art then it makes it all right, dahhhling.

On show at the Museum of London is a data representation of all the journeys undertaken by a single Boris Bike from the launch of the Cycle Hire Scheme, through until the delivery of the bike to the Museum of London in January 2013.

In total 2,286 cyclists hired out the bike, making a collective 2,450 trips. Which by my back of a fag packet calculations must mean that some cyclists hired out the bike more than once.

This data is then put to artistic use with a series of digital representations mapping every single ride on a large screen. A routine trip from Aldgate to E & C all of a sudden becomes a work of art. Quite a challenge.

There is considerable crossover with Cabbies Capital and his brilliant use of online mapping for his fares around the city. The disjointed roads of London enable the *ahem* artist to create a rush of geographical swirls and loops, something that a dull grid structure city wouldn’t be able to offer.

We’re still working on a topological theory to try and explain why yer man Cabbie has relatively so few journeys South East. Likewise for the Museum of London Boris Bike. I remain convinced that Bermondsey and beyond is a transport Bermuda Triangle.

Waterloo appears as an epicentre for the Boris Bike action. The Camden loop up toward Hampstead, and the West London quadrant are also worth highlighting. It seems that cycling folk way out west cycle round and round and round in an isolationist circle.

Art, life etc.

Elsewhere in the exhibition and a bicycling timeline is on display from the Beck Boneshakers of the 1860′s through the wonders of an original Moulton Standard. It looked a little like my garden shed.

Bicycling inspired artwork from Ugo Gattoni surrounds the semi-circular entrance to the Museum of London. Cyclists were invited to submit photos of themselves and their bike. These were then given the artistic licence to create some half-decent imagery.

We are the city, we are the traffic.

You know that you’ve reached a critical mass when the art world takes an interest in cycling.

Chapeau!