Pretend to be ein Schienenfahrzeug
Christian Kurz
Installation with modified bicycle and projector, two-second film loop, LED lighting system, bike support structure
Austria 2018
Image above: Reload the Apparatus exhibition view, photo by Jorit Aust.
The work Pretend to be ein Schienenfahrzeug consists of a bicycle that projects a railway track for itself via an analog film projector mounted to the handlebars, which is mechanically driven by the bicycle.
Both the bicycle and the train often appeared in the early age of film as symbols of movement and mobility. When we watch films like The General (Buster Keaton, 1926) the mechanical revolution of this time is illustrated before our eyes. Their imaging medium was (and remains) film, which in turn is based on mechanical and photochemical processes. In Keaton’s film we also see an – old-fashioned at the time of filming – bicycle, which Johnnie Grey grabs to rush after his lover in the eponymous locomotive. 15 years before Keaton, Charlie Chaplin also appropriated a bike in a sketch in which he and his brother have all kinds of mishaps on and around a penny farthing.
The cyclists who use this bike today, as if it was a train, physically participate in this symbolic tradition. They create this connection with their muscle power. It happens the moment they begin pedaling and thereby activate the projector mechanism. There is a film loop in the projector, which was produced completely with analog means. The modified film device projects train tracks on the ground and guides the way. (Christian Kurz)
Christian Kurz, born 1985 in Vienna, lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
