PERFORMANCE LIFESTYLE

The words ‘performance’ and ‘lifestyle’ are bandied around a lot these days.  They conjure up ideas of individuals making the most, or getting the most, or squeezing the most out of whatever lifestyle choice it is that they are currently pursuing. The idea of performance in contemporary society is one that might imply ‘performance indicators’ or ‘high performance’, and perhaps a sense of fitness, committed training, elite athleticism, triathlons, bodybuilding and other overachiever obsessions.  ‘Lifestyle’ is one of those dirty words that I often feel a little cynical towards, especially in light of ‘lifestyle television’ or ‘lifestyle choices’, though there is no escaping the fact that we all make ‘lifestyle choices’ and live out one lifestyle or another.

 

In the context of this research project and reflections upon the idea of portraits and personalities I think of ‘performance lifestyle’ in another manner.  In particular, I think of those people who develop a lifestyle devoted to performing. Not performing in the sense of ‘in the theatre’ or “I’m a performance artist – come and watch my video” but those people who are committed to outdoors, on the street, real live, everyday type of performance.  It’s the kind of performers who genuinely engage with a real public and challenge people’s day-to-day sense of what may or may not constitute reality or the norm. 

I’m not talking about buskers and people who pursue or expect a financial exchange. I’m talking about people who put on a show, regardless of financial outcomes. These are the people that ‘give’, culturally, on a daily basis.  It’s something like the ideals of street art where art comes out of the confines of a gallery and is “just there for everybody, man”, though we all know that street art always has a bit that you can buy.

Certainly, this project aspires to those big ideals and I get a huge kick out freaking people out on a daily basis.  My research seems to indicate that the general public are at ease with bicycles as they know them, but they are often flabbergasted that someone might alter a bicycle in order to make it more entertaining.  I love the looks that people give you – kind of variations on fear, shock, nausea, having just soiled their smalls and outright hilarity.  This contorted facial expression is often combined with overall body language that indicates the viewer has just witnessed some giant glitch in the matrix that they better hurry up and photograph on their mobile device before the gaping schism in reality closes over again. (As an aside, I wonder whether contemporary Ghostbusters might simply capture supernatural nemeses on iPads.) These comments should not be read as a criticism of the general public as I enjoy acting out this cultural transaction and playing on it, I enjoy the role of performer.

There are many heroes, all over the world, of the Performance Lifestyle genre and I would like to take this opportunity to tip my hat to some of the more distinct that I have encountered and enjoyed on a regular basis.

Johnny Haysmann’s physical stature is dwarfed only by his legendary status as an Adelaide icon.  Equal parts enigma and celebrity, Johnny’s white gumboots, speedos and various array of accessories have been seen striding proudly through Rundle Mall and into the South Australian shared psyche for what seems like decades.  Here is a link to his own website which offers a warm and personal insight into the man and his motivations.

http://johnhaysman.synthasite.com/photos-2.php

Victor Lancaster, Melbourne’s infamous bucket drummer has kept the CBD alive for many years.  His beats have been celebrated on numerous occasions and made into several recordings.  You can read a little more about Victor here.

http://www.citylightsprojects.com/press/victor-lancaster-beat-city

You simply must watch this beautiful video of Darwin’s Trevor Jenkins, the Rubbish Warrior.  Trevor devotes his time to constructing ephemeral sculptures out of roadside detritus- in between running for mayor and generally fighting the good fight.

ADVENTURE PANTS

Have you ever wondered how it is that our intrepid adventurers maintain body heat on the wild tundras of the Adelaide Hills?  Here's the secret - Adventure Pants!  Made from Australian fabric and hand printed in Melbourne, these high quality garments have been seen wrapping the pins of the finest tradies, outdoor athletes and rock stars.   These are my own personal choice for their cotton construction, sans fleece, allowing a high level of breathability and their resistance to the mobile sauna outcomes of other similar products.  They also are perfect for my application in their own fusion of both art and adventure.

Beyond my completely objective rant I make note that my services are available for the promotion of any Australian made product that makes use of the word 'adventure' in it's title.  I am also open to alliances between any handmade products that assist in the pursuit of high end freaky adventuring.

Stay warm kids - you know how!

http://www.captainrobbo.com/

CALCULATIONS & CREATIONS

When I began this particular blog I thought that it may become focused on the adventures of one particular bike.  Of course that could never be the case as I’m just not a one bike kind of person.  In fact, there is a formula that is widely applied throughout the bike world by which you can calculate the number of bikes that you need.  It is a simple calculation of n +1, with n being the number of bikes that you already have.  The same formula could also be applied to art collecting. 

The affliction of bicycle collection or accumulation can become even more serious when you start to give old bikes that are otherwise discarded a new lease on life. Old bikes tend to appear magically in the street, people who know that you collect bikes start to deliver them to your door and pretty soon you have quite a pile of raw materials from which to create. In this case, the practice of tall bike building could have that contemporary catch phrase, ‘upcycling’, applied.  The term then becomes nicely stacked with extra analogy.

There is an element of this project that I have decided to develop a little further, and whilst I’m not quite ready to reveal it in it’s entirety, I can say that I have decided that the project will require a specific new tall machine.  So, here’s a snap of this latest lanky creation currently in the stage of being rigorously test ridden before receiving a little more finite finishing.

THREE TALL BIKES : ONE LONG WEEKEND : FINAL CUT

Jimmy's Tall Bike Adventures - Three Tall Bikes One Long Weekend from James Dodd on Vimeo.

This is a tale of three young gents on three unusual machines, bike packing through the picturesque Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula.  It is a slightly longer compilation than my usual output so make yourself comfy, sit back and enjoy the ride. 

SELF PORTRAIT WITH HATS : TALL TALES AND TERMINOLOGY

A more obvious variation of the theme of this project, followed below by a bit of an expansion of conversations I find myself having whilst straddling various camps.

TALL TALES & TERMINOLOGY

It has occurred to me, in my attempt to fill a gap between art worlds and bike worlds that there is a lot of specialist language that is employed between the two.  Certainly, this is not a revelation and this kind of thing occurs in all subcultures.  These nuances of language are developed both for a need to be able to have highly specific and resolved communication and also become present in more informal contexts.  These less formal applications include things like the use of slang which has built in cultural implications that indicate complex understandings and can be applied in ways that can leave outsiders feeling excluded.

Let me give you some examples that are fitting to this project.  If I was talking to a trained art head I would talk about things like how I am interested in notions of hacking, hijacking and punk.  More specifically, I would make reference to movements such as Arte Povera, Grunge and maybe even take a stab at the idea of freak bikes being related the notion of the abject and it’s reanimation of things otherwise dead or discarded.

There are those people I know who are left leaning, politically, who I would talk to about the idea of freak bike culture purposefully rejecting existing systems of order, opposing primary elements of commodity based culture and encouraging DIY in the post apocalyptic sense rather than the Jamie Durie sense.  I might even try to strike up a conversation about true radical creativity.

To my bike buddies I talk about things such as bike-packing, how the relative head angle of a tall bike effects the trail of the fork, overall weight position and the machine’s tendency to perform uncontrollable mad wheelies and my futile attempts at joining delicate 4130 tubing with the decidedly undelicate process of arc welding.  Most of these conversations are relevant to an understanding of all things two-wheeled and pedallable and are shared with the majority of my long term bike friends who tend to have a passion for anything that vaguely resembles a bicycle.  They, in-turn, have arrived at their specific points via original interests in specific cycling subcultures such as BMX, MTB, fixed or road, all of which have a specifc set of language and understandings. Indeed, most of these specific subcultures act as a bit of a gateway drug to get riders hooked into a lifetime of bicycle use.

So, after all of that nonsense, I would expect that you are scratching your head in confusion, regarding one angle or another.  At this point, I must also make clear, that there is no quick way to resolve these gaps, only that it is up to those people who use specialist language not to use it in anger and to help out those who are still coming up to speed.  Similarly, don’t be intimidated by big words, just consider them another step forward in your own ongoing language adventure.

THREE TALL BIKES : ONE LONG WEEKEND

As an extension of my ongoing creative projects and a shared love of bikes and adventure, three of us set off on a three-day tall bike camping excursion over the recent long weekend. We travelled from Adelaide, through the Mt Lofty Ranges and down the Fleurieu Peninsula, stopping overnight at Meadows and McLaren Vale.

Part extreme expedition, part performance art on wheels, this journey was a lot of fun.  It was an exploration of our own potential, the potential of strange machines and an ongoing service to community via free public entertainment in the form of a tricky to label, kind of mobile street art freak out. 

It was a very successful trip and we eagerly anticipate more to come. I have made a short video to share our experience.  This is the taster - full report coming soon.

Jimmy's Tall Bike Adventures - Three Tall Bikes One Long Weekend - Taster from James Dodd on Vimeo.

BIKE EASEL : PLEIN AIR ACTION

The French term en plein air translates simply as in the open air.  It is commonly applied in the art world to describe paintings created outdoors.  Artists find themselves drawn to the outdoors, favoring the cool breeze in their hair and the distinct natural light to the often musty confines of their studios.  Armed with portable easels and materials, artists set off into the landscape to create studies and finished works of the world around them.

Australia has a fantastic history of plein air painting stretching from early colonial artists such as Eugene Von Guerard and George French Angas, through wonderful Impressionists such as Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder, to artists working today.  One of the many nuances of plein air painting is that the artist is more immediately experiencing the place that they are representing.  The process is often discussed in romantic, heroic terms, with the artist consistently referred to as ‘capturing’ a sense of place or time.  Amongst our contemporary Australian artists are figures such as John Wolseley, famous for his extended treks which move beyond simple painting via the incorporation of processes such as the use of branches and leaves for mark making, adding soil to his surface and even the burial of canvases for later excavation.  In all cases, these artists are considered in terms of their adventuring expeditions and the observations and artworks resulting from them.  So, it only makes sense that I should develop an easel attachment for my tall bike.  

Pictured here in its prototype stage, the attachment allows the rider use the bike as a support for painting, enabling the artist the freedom to ride to any desired location and pursue their making, plein air.   The process of traversing the landscape on bicycle imbues the rider with a tangible experience of that place, which becomes transferred to that persons understanding and the work that they produce.  The easel attachment also lends itself nicely as a metaphor for this project as a whole, where the bicycle is the primary site for creativity.

This variation is collapsible, breaking down into it’s various components for easy stowage and carrying.  Those of you who are more bike oriented might recognise some of the commonly available bits that have been repurposed  here.

TALL ROAD FRAME

I've been otherwise consumed over the last week, working out the finer details of some future adventure planning, but I have had a little time for some Gumtree browsing.  I'm on the lookout for a road frame that might be built up into a tall machine of some kind.  Maybe this will do the trick?

DIY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Jimmy's Tall Bike Adventures - DIY Google Street View from James Dodd on Vimeo.

One of the obvious elements of tall bike riding is that you are high up - you can see over things.  Many tall lefties will argue that this is an advantage in traffic where the rider can see over cars, allowing them to continue their righteous forward cycling movement unhindered.  This may be somewhat true but what they are not telling you is the other stuff they can see over – like fences.  This experience is clear to me and it got me thinking about privacy, voyeurism and things like Google Earth and Google Street View.  These things are changing the way we consider our privacy.  It may seem trivial but I’m sure we have all done that thing where we try and view someone’s house via satellite, be it our own or someone else’s.  We are all inherently aware of Google Street View and have played with it in some way or other.  There are artists who have approached this idea in various ways.   I would note my favorites as Jon Rafman’s 9 eyes project in which he trawls through Google Street View pictures looking for personal and aesthetic anomalies.  Melanie Coles’ Where On Earth is Waldo? is a lighthearted approach to the same conversation. 

In my case, I have decided to make a DIY Google Street View.  I have made an arm that fixes to my handlebars with a camera at more or less eye height, recording what I see whilst riding my tall bike.  With this in mind I have set out to extend my portrait project by making a portrait of my suburb, using my DIY Google Street View. 

PRECURSORS : ART WORLD : BIKE WORLD

This project is a creative journey, examining my own search for intersections between art life and bike life.  As with any expedition there are other explorers who have gone before and it is important to note these in order to map a solid trajectory.  Bicycles have made intermittent appearances in contemporary art over the last century, some of them more glamorous than others.

GLOBAL

I’ll begin with Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel.  In 1913 this French fella decided to place a bike wheel upside down in a stool and sit in his studio, smoking cigarettes, watching it spin around.  “It’s like watching the flames of a fire”, he said, in a heavy French accent.  It was not until a couple of years later, when Duchamp put a porcelain urinal on a plinth and tagged it with a pseudonym that he decided he wanted the art world to think about these objects seriously, offering the idea that they be considered as ‘ready mades’.  This was the revolutionary idea that an artist could take anything they find and call it art.

Next on my list is the creative genius Frank Zappa.   I’m not sure I can do justice to his almightiness in a written description here, except to say that his wildly prolific career and devotion to testing the boundaries of convention have influenced multiple generations of artists that have witnessed his exploits.  His appearance on the Steve Allen Show in 1963, reveals a baby faced Frank, obviously inspired and at the beginning of his phenomenal career.  One of my favourite Zappa tales is that, without him, there would have been no Smoke on the Water recorded by Deep Purple.  It was a rabid Zappa fan who shot a flare into the ceiling of the Montreux Casino, mid concert, that “burned the place to the ground…”

Ai Wei Wei is a contemporary and truly radical artist.  His outspoken artworks and criticism of the Chinese government have had him arrested and thrown in jail.  His high profile has brought him global attention personally and also to the political cause of his people.  Being that the bicycle is the primary mode of transport for more than 500 million Chinese it comes as no surprise that bikes feature in numerous forms in his work.  He has variously stacked and joined frames and components from China’s leading brand, Forever.

                                  

LOCAL

In my time as an Australian artist there have been a number of bike uses from artists whose work I am a fan of.  Matthew Bradley is an Adelaide based artist who arguably sowed the seed one of the most significant seeds for the project that I am undertaking.  He has made a couple of works that pay homage to Australian freak bike culture within the context of his ongoing investigations of vehicles, exploring and just what it means to be a boy.

Being that the BMX features heavily in the childhood of most Australian boys it is predictable that it should appear in the artwork of these boys as they become artists. Matt Griffin, Paul Wrigley and the master of pop culture sculpture, Ricky Swallow, have all produced variations of this magical two-wheeled machine that captures the imaginations and afternoons of many a suburban youth. 

There is one Australian artist that deserves particular attention who has singlehandedly done more for the union of extreme sport and contemporary art than any other artist.  Shaun Gladwell has spent more than a decade examining skating, break dancing, bmx, other street sport cultures and their potential to convey poetic ideas.  He continues his global rise and rise and video art world domination to this day.  This is a great video that gives an insight to his work generally and his 2013 UK exhibition Cycles of Radical Will.

                                     

FREAK

Freak bikes, frankenbikes and generally weird pedal powered vehicles are nothing new.  I would like to pay homage to a few cultural icons the helped birth this particular project.  First of all, CHUNK 666 as true innovators in the genre of imminent apocalyptic prophecies, inspired many an angle grinder and bicycle union.  During the 90's, via their use of the ancient publishing format of zines, they spread the good word across the US and the globe.  I tip my helmet to the Black Label Bicycle Club for bringing high energy inspiration in typical NYC fashion.  They are representative of radical political ideals and cultural rebellion, principles to which I am always keen to align. 

The omnipotent Johnny Payphone gets the heftiest high five here, for a couple of reasons.  As a representative of the Rat Patrol he was invited to Australia by some very clever dicks in our nation’s capital.  They formed an Australian chapter, Rat Patrol Oz, and it was Johnny Payphone who forged the link between Adelaide’s Tongue of Fire and the Canberra freaks.  I also note Mr Payphone here in reference to his instructional DIY videos, an interesting contemporary internet subculture generally speaking, that will likely recur in my investigations.

Tall Bike Bobby is a combination adventurer and bicycle advocate whose approach to broadening public perception of cycling is warm and  inviting.  He has completed a West Coast tour of the US aboard a tall bike, spreading the greasy love all over the highways and laneways of California and beyond. 

Lastly, I would like to pay homage to a great freaky man who has assisted countless individuals trying to work out how to fix their bike via online assistance.   Anyone who has ever searched for bicycle tech support will have come across the inimitable Sheldon Brown.  A peerless figure of the bicycle universe, his blog has helped many a cyclist continue their adventures.  R.I.P. Dr. Brown.

CUDLEE CREEK OVERNIGHT MISSION : CAPTAIN'S LOG

There were beautiful conditions for my overland bike packing journey which took me through the picturesque Adelaide Hills to the small town of Cudlee Creek.  I carried all of the gear required for some rudimentary camping, stayed overnight in the caravan park and returned home the next day.

I've made a short video of the journey for your entertainment.  Whilst producing it I considered a few elements that feed into the overall theme of a portrait.  The internet is carpeted with home-made videos of people recording their actions, all of them perfect for consideration as a portrait.  Further to this I have been considering forms of travelog and videolog in combination with role models who espouse a sense of adventure, risk taking and the frontier.  Of course, it never hurts to roll these elements in a steamy coating of gravelly masculinity, if that's the kind of man you want to be!  So, my reference points for this exploration are the peerless CAPTAIN JAMES KIRK and the rugged saint, BEAR GRYLLS.  I'm also quite intrigued by the 'survivalist in the tent' device and would like to share one of my favorite home made movie tent moments of all time.

Jimmy's Tall Bike Adventures - Cudlee Creek Overnight Mission from James Dodd on Vimeo.

FULLY LOADED

So, here we go, the moment of truth.  The bike is fully loaded ready for my overnight adventure out to Cudllee Creek.  I have a route planned that will take me along various back roads, fire roads and bits and pieces of the Heysen trail.  There is one unavoidable evil today - NORTON SUMMIT RD - I'm feeling fit - but this one will be the biggest challenge.  Fast guys smash it in about 12mins - I'm budgeting a little more than that!

As far as ongoing quest elements today, I expect to encounter a bunch of road bike riders, mountain bike riders and people who don't even care about bikes (or art).  The mission is to have some kind of freaky connection with them all and remind them that it really is possible to approach things differently to the norm.  Regarding portraiture, this weekend's adventure will become more of an understanding of place via landscape.  I will certainly be getting to know the intimate details of the lumps and bumps of the face of the Adelaide Hills.

WHO NEEDS A LADDER?

I dropped by to visit my old mate KAB and lend him a hand with my mad skillz whilst he was painting a new mural on Morphett St bridge .  He forgot his ladder so it was good that I rocked up and could help him out with the bits high up. 

FIRST OUTING

One of the things that I'd like this machine to do is be able to travel longish distances, carry some luggage, and possibly combine this with some overnight camping. I have long had a hankering for some bike-packing and this might be the time to try and get some action. There are a bunch of great blogs about people's cycle touring escapades which become portraits of the riders as well as documents of adventures and I'll post more about that in the future.

This first outing was one that needed to test the ability of the bike to be ridden for a few hours at a time over varying terrain, with a small amount of luggage. For this journey I chose to ride from where I live in Adelaide, Underdale, south to Seaford, travelling predominantly along the bike path which follows the Southern Expressway. The trip is a couple of hours long at a casual pace, with one particularly steep hill, after which the ride yields some lovely views of the Fleurieu Peninsula and the ocean.

Shortly after this happy snap I ran over some broken glass at high speed (I think it was an old television that someone had generously smashed on the bike path), resulting in a rapid halt and a majorly severed sidewall on my front tyre. Often this sort of incident is the kind of thing that can put you out of action for the day as once a repaired tube has been inserted, the inflated pressure can bulge it out of the cut in the tyre, producing another puncture. Fortunately, as Australians, a happy little fix that can be performed in this situation is the insertion of one of our lovely plastic banknotes. The notes are very strong and support the pressure, inside the tyre, allowing the rider to continue on their merry way. This presented me with a lovely portrait of Queen Elizabeth - thanks Lizzy!

I arrived at my destination, an event celebrating artworks made with tarps, held on the Seaford beach. The guys from TARPSPACE hosted a lovely afternoon, with some extra special outdoor artworks from a range of artists. I used James Marshall's construction as a launching ramp to practice my TALL BIKE BACKFLIPS.

 

THE BUILD

So, this particular bicycle is to be a little different from the average- it is to be a 'tall' bike. A tall bike is not something that can simply be bought from a shop - they have to be built - which is one of the main things that makes them attractive to me. There is a strong culture of tall bike building across the planet with varying styles and degrees of finish being applied. Usually these sorts of bikes are fairly D.I.Y. in terms of materials used and construction methods applied. My build fits the D.I.Y. ethos - there are many lovely tools that I would love to have but simply do not. This is not something that will get in the way of my adventure. In many ways it is the creative restrictions that determine many decisions.

 

The Pile

This is the bulk of my materials. A couple of old frames - a GT and a Peugeot - some wheels and an assortment of other bits. 

The Shape

I have a few basic shapes decided that will form the basics. These include general measurements of wheelbase and bottom bracket height.

The Fork 

With the basic frame shape locked in I can now make some choices on fork length.

The Basic Build 

This is the basic shape of everything ready to have parts added. 

Jimmy's Tall Bike Adventures - The Build from James Dodd on Vimeo.

The Build Video 

We all love a little time lapse footage to help us condense and quickly view things that would otherwise require a great deal of time to experience. Here's bit of freaky motion to help you understand the build process.

BEGINNINGS

This project is to be an experiment in the potential of a self-portrait in contemporary art. 

Whilst most of the artwork that I create is connected to my passions by default, there are some things that I love that have not been present in my practice to this point. The part of my life that I will be exposing in this project will come as no surprise to those people who know me closely.

I am a complete bike nerd.  I always have been and always will be.  Bikes have always been my form of escape, a very real expression of freedom.  As a child I rode BMX bikes, making motorbike noises and fantasizing about being a race winning superhero.  As a teenager I developed a passion for mountain biking, spending hours pedaling through the Adelaide Hills, still dreaming of being a race winning superhero.  As an adult I commute daily by bicycle, ride my mountain bike most weekends and have finally succumbed to humility, realizing that I am not the world champion athlete of my dreams.

The most recent development in my cycling life has been my introduction to the freak bike world.  I have a very distinct memory from more than a decade ago of witnessing a horde of outrageous looking people riding strangely modified bikes, I thought that this one of the most amazing sights that I have ever witnessed.  Over time I have come to know this group as local freak bikers, the Tongue of Fire.  In the last couple of years I’ve finally met some of these people and begun to build weird bikes of my own.  This has become a combination of my creative and cycling passions but also extends my socio political concerns, as these bikes tend to become very real public challenges to the norm. I have resisted bringing freak bikes into my art world because, most often, they engage best in their natural state – being ridden publicly.  This project will become a framework for me to explore potential cross over between my outdoor and gallery pursuits. 

As such, this will revolve around the construction of a bike and the adventures of that machine.  This particular bicycle will become a site and a vehicle with which I can test my own ideas and engage with viewers in both the physical and virtual world.  It will become a kind of research tool to explore, social, political, cultural and physical ideas. The online component of this adventure will work as all blogs do, offering links and jumping points to relevant and aligned outcomes as filled out by personal musings and highjacked content.