Cycle
Cycle takes the audience on a bicycle journey through a forest path. A single audience member climbs onto the bicycle stationed in front of a large monitor and begins to peddle. The bicycle is situated on top of a trainer, which rotates another axle. The axle controls a sprocket and chain set, which runs perpendicular to the bicycle to second axle. Focused on the cylinder is a webcam which feeds the image back onto a monitor stationed in from of the bicycle. As the audience member peddles on the bicycle, they appear to travel through the world towards the horizon.
The initial plan for the project was to explore examples of cyclical narrative: stories that end and begin in the same spot. The cylinder in the planning documents depicts the continued rise and fall of a fictional city. The empty land gives way to grand buildings before the degradation takes over to the point that the city collapses. The land provides a potential from which the city rises again. With repeat completed journeys of the bicycle, the audience will be able to connect the objects in and around the city throughout their various states stationed in time. Cycle as imagined asks the audience to consider the pasts traversed, the future yet to be seen, and the path that connects them.
The mechanical system also lends itself towards a mode as 'disc player' or otherwise as a system onto which content can be loaded. Thus the actual sculpture and experience can be tailored with the creation of several separate wheels with unique content to each. Potential future avenues include new cyclical narratives, the experience of falling upwards (or downwards) based on the curvature of the wheel,
Cycle was featured on the Make Magazine Blog during February 2012, won an Editor's Choice award at World Maker Faire 2012, and was featured on Wired.com. This project also spawned a number of copycat and exploratory projects elsewhere, including Bay Area maker faire.
“It's like Rube Goldberg meets Le Petit Prince via Virtual Reality”