A Collective Cycling Body Of Sound

Conny Zenk

Conny Zenk (Center Research Focus, PhD candidate PhD in Art), Bianca Ludewig (researcher and journalist) and Magdalena Scheicher (researcher) are interested in taking not only unusual paths but also using vehicles in different ways. In their contribution "A Collective Cycling Body Of Sound", they reflect on the bicycle as a medium for art and sound and present activist strategies of collective cycling to open up queer-feminist, solidarity-based perspectives on the city. In doing so, they explore the possibilities of public space as a sound space and discuss insights from Zenk’s activist practice. Inviting Ludewig and Scheicher for interviews, Zenk discusses bikefeminism and counterpublics, and approaches soundrides as a form of empowerment.

Riding a bicycle connects me not only to various districts and neighborhoods of the city but also offers a unique perspective on the urban landscape. Suddenly, I become part of the diverse soundscape and constant flow of vehicles that define our urban environment. Engaging in cycling movements, I had the opportunity to encounter numerous communities, especially in European and Asian cities such as Vienna, Graz, Ljubljana, Timisoara, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Yogyakarta. These include FLINTA* cycling communities, fixed gear nightrides, and hardcourt bike polo. Furthermore, I focused on performing art with bicycles in my artistic practice, especially in public spaces using sound art. Experiences in creating artistic projects such as Soundrides,1 SPIRAL BIKE,2 Velodrome,3 and BIOSPHERE4 have provided a diverse outlook on sound art and cycling engaged performances in public space. In this way, I become part of a music scene and cycling community in each city.

The weekly Tuesday Nightride5 organized by Factory Five started in Shanghai in 2012 with hundreds of participants and took place for several years. I will hardly forget the sensation of riding the vast, empty streets at night. The densely constructed architecture of a megacity, with its countless concrete pathways and bridges, was incredibly impressive. During the winter, Shanghai and Beijing were shrouded in a smog that would envelop the entire city, causing people to wear respirator masks for several months. This is why there is a bicycle collective called Big Dirty Cycling – 巨脏6 which addresses the air pollution in the Chinese capital. The first Critical Mass7 took place in San Francisco in 1992 and still symbolizes a shift towards mobility in favor of inclusive and climate-friendly infrastructure and cities. The feeling of taking over the city and public space with hundreds of people on bikes, the trust towards the community and the people who guided me through on my first nightride in Shanghai, is something I carry to every Soundride and every city.

Inspired by the dense megacity and the weekly nightrides, I started to organize similar nightrides in Vienna in 2013. They took place on Thursdays because the Vienna Bike Kitchen was open that day, which was the starting point for our nightrides. The Vienna Bike Kitchen8 is a DIY bicycle shop where you can learn how to repair your bike. It is a very empowering environment and collective, and always open on certain days to address FLINTA* (female, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, transgender, agender persons). I knew of the Bike Kitchen and the Critical Mass beforehand, but something changed while organizing the nightrides. I think I discovered the bicycle as a medium, not just for exploring but also to produce art and sound. The first bicycle-related performance was named Art Ride X and it had the format of an alley-cat race but was not competitive and used the concept of checkpoints for artistic interventions. An alley-cat is a game or event similar to a treasure hunt and popular among bike messengers. Together with my artistic partner and collaborator for many years, Daniel Aschwanden, I eventually invited artists I was on tour within China, such as Soviet Pop, Li Qing, and Li Weisi, and various Viennese artists such as Matthias Hurtl and Gratis Kaiserin for music and performative interventions along the route.

In the next few years, I developed the participatory and performative project RAD Performance. RAD refers to the word wheel or bicycle in German, but also to the queer-feminist bike collective RADS.9 As the bike collective RADS we started by taking Luna Rides together with FLINTA* friends. With each Luna Ride, a community was created, and mobile safe spaces and alliances were formed. A Luna Ride is a group ride during a full moon and similar to Critical Mass, it is about making cyclists, especially FLINTA* persons, visible in public space, but also about co-creating inclusive and feminist urban spaces and pursuing an approach to feminist actions in public space. O.V.A.S.,10 a bicycle brigade established in Los Angeles in 2010 works in a similar fashion. The weekly Flinktas11 rides, which have been running every Wednesday since 2022, also follow the concept of FLINTA* Rides on racing bikes.

The first workshop of RAD Performance was created by artists such as Hypercycle.12 Together we created Cyberheikel, noise bikes for the posse, and eventually a bike noise orchestra was riding the streets (Workshop beat se streets by Hypercycle, 2017). Cyberheikel13 as a tek noise band played their first performance at the Vienna Bikekitchen in winter 2017. This has been the starting point of a long-lasting artistic collaboration and friendship.

With each Soundride, a collective body of sound is created, a multitude of (amplified) voices and relations in the city. The acoustics of the urban space complement, overlay, and extend the electronic compositions. Acoustic and spatial experiences are created through the choral movement of bodies and loudspeakers on bicycles and following Brandon LaBelle’s perspective, “… acoustics dramatically contributes to a sense of orientation as well as belonging, lending to how we navigate through spaces and environments in capturing a sense of place: how we synchronize, attune, and align with others” (LaBelle 2021).

A current project I would like to highlight is SPIRAL BIKE, which takes place in the Viennese bicycle spirals. Bicycle spirals are circular ramps on bridges that allow cyclists to cross the Südbahnhof Bridge, Brigittenauer Bridge, and Prater Bridge with their bicycles. The center is characterized by an open space and when you stand in the middle and look up, it is like standing in an arena and looking into a circular panorama with several platforms. We were allowed to officially enter the spiral with people for the first time and it felt like we were not only occupying this place with our bicycles but also collectively performing in it.

Multiple cyclists and soundbikes inside the spiral, create a distinctive spatial sound experience. Sound takes center stage, not just by moving around us but through ascending and descending the spiral with the performers. This creates a unique auditory experience and allows the spatial perception of sound through different choreographies on bikes.

Moderation is a significant part, and I consciously invite the audience to listen and try to direct their attention to the urban space and the various auditory experiences. At the same time, the audience can take on different listening positions and explore the location itself. It creates a relaxed atmosphere where many things become possible, which would not be conceivable in a traditional concert hall. Our perception is sharpened, and sounds are recognized as part of the city, traffic, and infrastructure, becoming visible as layers of the performance.

For the SPIRAL BIKE project, different artists collaborated and played with various technical configurations. The initial rehearsals took place with two Soundbikes near the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna’s Prater. Our first setup was with just two speakers so that we could initially work with the sonic characteristics of the Soundbikes. A performance at the Reclaim!14 festival (STWST Linz, 2023) already involved two Soundbikes.

Since every rehearsal also requires performers to ride the Soundbikes, the second rehearsal for the Brigittenauer Bridge included choreographic rehearsals and a small setup of four Soundbikes. The focus of the rehearsal was to understand the sonic properties of the bike spiral and the movement of the Soundbikes within the architecture. The performance then involved two to four Soundbikes on the ground and two to four riding Soundbikes, with the artists deciding how to divide their setup based on their experiences during the rehearsal. In addition, I developed different movement scores for the performers on the Soundbikes, sketching and test riding the choreography together with experienced performers and bike messengers.

The Südbahnhof Bridge, due to its architecture and acoustic conditions, presented a more challenging environment and required an extension with a multi-channel speaker ring on the ground, consisting of eight speakers and two subs in total, in addition to the six mobile Soundbikes. Similar to previous performances at Velodrome,15 the ring could also be played as a separate layer. During the rehearsal, both the ground speaker ring and the Soundbikes were tested in the architecture of the Südbahnhof Bridge a few days before the performance.

SPIRAL BIKE was the first art project in the typically closed inner area of the bike spiral of Südbahnhof Bridge. Permission was required to enter the location. Rehearsals were possible with the agreement of the city of Vienna. However, many unknown parameters cannot be rehearsed, primarily because the concert space of the bike spiral also serves as a public space, and the bridge must remain accessible and open for regular traffic. Of course, this creates interesting situations and sounds as well. The surrounding and acoustic aspects of the architecture and the soundscape of the city, provide a setup for compositional ideas, movement, and choreography, as well as interaction and participation of the audience.

These movements are simple but can have diverse acoustic effects. For example, when a swarm of sound bikes descends the spiral at high speed compared to slow movements while ascending. The choreography is derived, among other things, from movements in the Cycle Circle Dance16 (Radreigen).

Cycle Circle Dance is an example of bicycle culture popular around the turn of the last century, in which quadrille, gymnastics, and parade elements took place and have been performed with bicycles in gymnasiums or on squares throughout Vienna and other cities in Europe. From the very beginning, Cycle Circle Dance, also named Radreigen, was practiced as a dance visible in public places, which constantly reformed itself in terms of its gender constellation. This fluid aspect in a historical movement practice inspired us to take up a tradition that had disappeared and transform it into a contemporary context. Fluidity, aspects of the hybrid, and the in-between are developed into a choreography of a contemporary Cycle Circle Dance17 and reinforced by the choral composition of sounds. In 2020, I delved into the intersection of bicycle history and sound art through the Artistic Research Pilot Project Dance Your Bike!18 Based on historical drawings and formations, a graphic notation was developed as the basis for possible 6-12 channel compositions.

The idea that performers ride up and down during each concert, carrying sounds through the levels of urban architecture creates a unique concert setting. The audience is free to move within the spiral or simply sit in the center and observe what is happening in and around the spiral. It is a traffic junction where a lot happens, both visually and acoustically. When a person on a skateboard passes by a Soundbike, or a car driving over the bridge, these sounds as the soundscape of the city, overlay and expand the composition and performance.

RAD Performance is happening from dusk till dawn and this increases the change of sound, light, and of course the impression of the architecture and the city. To reinforce this moment, additional lightning is created to illuminate the space and expand the architecture with laser projections.

Performances in public spaces not only create a different setting but also enable participation and mobility of the audience in contrast to the classic performance or concert space. Situations that are not possible in the concert hall become commonplace in public spaces, such as an audience driving past or a change of location and movement during the concert.

The audience is involved in different ways: by riding together, exploring new areas and districts, and by collectively changing speed, stopping at a red lights, driving over an intersection, and occupying an architecture or urban space. The feeling of collective experience becomes even stronger when it is an unknown place that is usually not used as a concert space.

The short, almost flash mob-like appearance of a Soundride creates fascination and enthusiasm among passersby. Usually, a very diverse audience is joining the ride and therefore I pay particular attention to mixes of different styles and genres that are often post-pop or post-club and are, therefore, easier to access and very suitable for riding. Soundrides with Ventil Records,19 Eastbloc Sound,20 or arooo.records21 are also experimental examples of successful Soundrides with different labels and DJs from Vienna and abroad.

Our mobile screen printing workshop, is inviting the audience to print their T-shirts, and was dedicated to the statement: CAR IS OVER. The poster says: Respect Existence or Expect Resistance. It aims to describe an inclusive and feminist city, a city that prioritizes public transport, cycling, and walking routes. A city in which cars take up less space and which becomes a living space for us.

What and who determines the sound of a city, and how have urban soundscapes changed since Bluetooth speakers and smartphones have become ubiquitous in the world of sound? Sound excerpts and atmospheres of the city form the basis for the soundtracks. Electrosmog clouds glimmer above the traveling drones of urban infrastructure – fragments of voices and poetry overlay long-forgotten territories. Distorted sounds cross our paths, stretching and amplifying them. Traces of sounds connect conversations with places and patterns of memory.

The symbolism of cycling is closely tied to the visibility of cyclists in public spaces, the associated shift in mobility, feminist urban and spatial appropriation, as well as its activist potential. The positioning of the bicycle as an anti-authoritarian, feminist, and/or activist symbol could also be observed in 2020 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. During the Friday Protests22 against the authoritarian government in Slovenia, the bicycle became a symbol of resistance against right-wing ideology.

Other collectives whose rides I joined in 2020 included the Tallbike Crew Pit Dhuwur23 from Yogyakarta. They organized weekly collective group rides and viewed their actions in the context of climate justice using their bicycle as an image for a change. The Tallbike Crew Pit Dhuwur is celebrating its 17th anniversary in 2023. Yogyakarta is not only a city with hundreds of self-built tall bikes and swing bikes but also a city with a great experimental and noise scene, where Jogja Noise Bombing takes to the streets with concerts. One of the most outstanding media artists and critical voices against corruption is Venzha. In Garden of the Blind,24 he uses the bicycle as an interface for simple electronic circuits (1999-2002). Another example of the bike as an instrument or sound source is the project Synth Bike 3.025 by Sam Battle under the pseudonym Look Mum No Computer (London 2016). Kreishell26 by Apephonie Production (Linz 2022) is maybe the largest analog bicycle-powered drum machine in the world.

There is already a long tradition of Soundbikes at Critical Mass, but during the pandemic, the significance of Soundrides in public spaces has grown considerably. I observed numerous international collectives reaching out to me through social media, sharing information, and engaging in discussions, including technical matters for Soundbikes. Notable examples include groups like Musimovil27 from Montevideo, Uruguay, and Marabiyak Sound28 from Pamplona, Spain. In most Soundbikes, the focus is on volume and bass, as seen with sound system collectives such as MoveAroundSound29 from Rotterdam and Technovélo30 in Paris. The primary objective is not just collective rides but also the occupation of public space. The audience often uses borrowed city bikes, and the core element is the collective experience through the occupation of public spaces with sound and bass. Together with the Cycling Community around Critical Masa Timisoara and Pedallez, RAD Performance organised the first Soundride in Romania 2021, leading to a series of workshops and the development of Sonic Cargo Bikes.31

Soundbikes also have certain requirements, such as mobility and therefore, Soundbikes, at least before the battery-powered and Bluetooth speakers boom, were mostly do-it-yourself projects. Furthermore, there are still no high-end speakers available on the market that support mobility and the specific measurements of cargo bicycles. Together with my partner, Georg Hartl, I have developed loudspeakers for cargo bikes over several years that have a remarkable sound quality, with a high precision of playback quality, and that are optimally built to the size of the cargo bicycles. The use of waveguides also increases the range and efficiency. An important criterion was the latency-free and multi-channel transmission of musical material to the speakers. The operation of the radio links using directional antennas and the choice of the 600Mhz band also ensures the highest possible reliability. Since we both have been very interested and active in underground techno, we have been always keen on self-built speakers, and the loudspeaker as a Soundbike becomes an artistic object by itself.

The city and its acoustic environment are constantly in motion. What influence do the sonic environment and surrounding noise of the city have on our perception? Is there a different openness and acceptance towards noises in compositions insofar as they are surrounded and overlaid by the noise of the city? I am particularly interested in moving sound sources in urban space and their dynamics and range, as well as the limits of what can be heard and driven. What acoustic and physical experiences can arise?

Examples of sounds from public space and associated compositions can be found in Dávid Somló’s32 Mandala (Budapest, 2015), Kaffe Matthews’ project Radio Cycle33 (London, 2003), where she leads the audience through the city by bicycle, acting as a mobile live radio station. The Radio Cyborg Transmitter34 by Reni Hoffmüller (Graz, 2021) is a sensor-equipped bicycle that uses Geiger counters and other sensors to record emission values and fine dust.

In Skatebored we Noize35 (Milan 2009) is a project by the artist and musician DJ Balli,36 who sonified the noise of skateboards for a live concert. Sound Skater37 (2022) by the collective SOUNDER is confronting city sounds and nature sounds in a temporary rewilding by keeping the sounds in constant motion. Skaters are creating a dynamic interactive soundscape around and through the audience.

Thinking with Pauline Oliveros, “[h]earing is something that happens to us because we have ears - it is our primary life, and maybe all of our lifetimes. Listening is what creates culture. Listening is very diverse and takes many different forms as cultures take many different forms” (Oliveros 2005). In this sense, I would like to consider co-creation as a process of artistic research to open a dialogue within a diverse field of practice and to connect various fields of knowledge.

In the words of Sara Ahmed: “What moves us, what makes us feel, is also that which holds us in place, or gives us a dwelling place. Hence, movement does not cut the body off from the ‘where’ of its inhabitance, but connects bodies to other bodies: attachment takes place through movement, through being moved by the proximity of others” (Ahmed 2015).

With RAD Performance I am also inviting people who don’t normally cycle, as well as passionate cyclists, to engage with experimental and electronic music. Audiences from the music scene mix with people who are interested in cycling and the city, architecture, and urban spaces. Many know the Critical Mass and appreciate the experience of cycling in a group. I have organized Soundrides in many different cities, but it is always important to have local partners who know their participants and the cycling scene. When I started getting interested in experimental music in my early 20s, I alternated between concert spaces and raves in warehouses. Art in public space enters the public sphere and consciously confronts a very diverse audience. As a transdisciplinary artist, I am visible in various genres, and at the same time, I find it particularly important that art remains open and accessible and can grow beyond its scene.

With RAD Performance I aim to explore compositions for the bicycle and public space, realized in motion with an array of mobile speakers. The city becomes a stage, and the bicycle becomes the medium. We move through the city with a critical voice, listening to the soundscapes of different squares, streets, and neighborhoods and the associated social, political, and historical environment. With each Soundride, a collective body of sound is created, a multiplicity of (amplified) voices and relationships of the city. The cyclists are an expression of a manifestation of the questioning of the city, its power structures, and its implications.

Sara Ahmed, Cultural Politics of Emotion, London: Routledge 2015.

Elena Biserna, Going Out. Walking, Listening, Soundmaking, umland: Brussels 2022.

Judith Butler, Anmerkungen zu einer performativen Theorie der Versammlung, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2016.

Julian Henriques, Sonic Bodies: Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing, London: Bloomsbury 2011.

Brandon LaBelle, Acoustic Territorie. Sound Culture and Everyday Life, London: Bloomsbury 2019.

Leslie Kern, Feminist City: How Women Experience the City, Münster: Unrast 2020.

Rosa Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, Eva Geber (ed.), Wien: Mandelbaum 2018.

Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composers’ Sound Guide, Lincoln: Deep Listening Publications 2005.

Dylan Robinson, Hungry Listening, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2020.

R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, New York: Simon & Schuster 1993.

Paul Virilio, Fahren, fahren, fahren... , Berlin: Merve 1978.

Acknowledgements:

Team SPIRAL BIKE 2023:

RAD Performers* on Soundbikes: Astrid, Bokan, Bull, Carrot, Gulnaz, Kyrill, Lili, Omayra

Soundride Mix by DJ Zey, stroborobo

Live-Concerts w/ Brigitta Bödenauer, Gischt, Jerobeam Fenderson + hansi3d, Fabian Lanzmaier, Outside Eye, Jakob Schauer, Conny Zenk

Mobile screen printing: Gratis Kaiserin & Conni Ratriot

Costume: Astrid Eder, sew.i.y.

3D Animation: Martina Moro

Artistic Direction: Conny Zenk

Technical Direction: Georg Hartl

Production Management: Lena Kauer, der goldene shit Graphic Design: Hannah Mayer

Photography: Thomas Gobauer, Hannah Mayr

Cinematography: Ioana Tarchila

Video Reels: Morris Marschik. Production Support: Michaela Zenk, Technical Support: Markus Liszt, Robert Zimmermann

Further acknowledgments within the text:

arooo-records (Soundrides x Grätzelrauschen, rec. - records of an emerging city)

Daniel Aschwanden (Art Ride X)

Flonky Chonks (RAD Performance Biosphere)

Verena Dürr (RAD Performance Biosphere)

Eastbloc Sound / Opal Opal (Soundrides, RAD Performance x Sonic Territories)

Matthias Hurtl (Art Ride X, Cranked Tapes, Biosphere)

Gratis Kaiserin (Art Ride X, beat se streets, Soundrides, SPIRAL BIKE)

Rahel Kraft (Dance Your Bike!, sound x tracks)

Suzie Légèr (RAD Performance Biosphere)

Bianca Ludewig (publication texts Sound Rides)

Hypercycle fällt aus (RAD Performance x urbanize!, RAD Performance x Radsommer, Soundrides 2022)

Veronika Mayer (beat se streets, Dance Your Bike!, sound x tracks, Velodrome)

RADS (beat se streets, CITY OF OUR OWN, Witch*Bike*Bitch Ride)

Magdalena Scheicher (publication texts Sound Rides)

Soviet-Pop, Li Qing & Li Weisi (Art Ride X)

Petra Sturm (Time To Reigen, RADschen Wanderung, Dance Your Bike!)

Ventil Records (City of Noise)

DJ Zey (Soundrides 2023)

1 | What does it mean for you as a researcher of music and sound to listen to music on the move and in motion?

Listening to music in motion is an exceptional experience that is visual, auditory, sensory, and immersive in a unique way. Moving around by walking, running, cycling, rollerblading, skateboarding, or taking the train dynamizes the experience of movement. Before Walkmans, portable audio devices, boomboxes, or portable radios were invented, this was reserved solely for car drivers. Now we, as listeners, are mobile, and I experience this as a particular form of ‘acoustic cocooning,’ as Karin Bijisterveld (2010) has called it; Brandon LaBelle (2008) calls it ‘sonic bubble,’ and Tia De Nora (2000) uses the phrase ‘auditory scaffolding.’ This has given rise to new body and spatial concepts. Bijsterveld (2010) interprets the present as a time of ‘techno-cocooning,’ which means using technology to create sensory spheres of privacy. Approached as emotional protective shells, music also has a mood-regulating effect and helps to endure the fear of loneliness or estrangement in everyday urban life better.

Playing your own music also serves to escape an externally determined urban sound environment. For example, car noises have been identified as the most annoying by EU citizens.38 This territorial use of music serves to demarcate one’s own space from public space but also serves to appropriate spaces and give them new meanings. As sociologist Malte Friedrich put it, the result is a (new) dialectic of proximity and distance (see Friedrich 2010). The result is a self-determined sound space, an aesthetic interplay of sound and visual perception of the urban space, and an essential means of occupying places and creating auditory territories. I too was a passionate Walkman user and enjoyed listening to loud music in the car. I have not had a car for a long time; instead, the bicycle is now my everyday means of transportation. In view of climate change, we can confidently state that bicycles represent the future more than cars, even if Austria’s chancellor does not want to admit it.39

2 | How do you perceive the city through music, and how do you listen to it while taking a soundride with other cyclists?

When cycling in the city, I rarely listen to music with headphones. The risk of not hearing sounds that can decide over life and death is too great. Cycling becomes much more enjoyable when you can listen to music via a sound system, hear the outside noises simultaneously, and are part of a community where everyone pays attention to the traffic and each other. Riding in community prevents cocooning, characterized through immersing yourself in sounds and music alone (privacy). While I exhaust quickly when cycling alone, losing my desire or stamina after an hour or so, several hours can pass without me noticing when I ride in community. The monthly Critical Mass bike demo provides an opportunity for such collective cycling. Sound always accompanies us, ringing from many individual, often self-built, stereo systems or Bluetooth speakers. However, as diverse as the participants in Critical Mass are, so are the sounds. For sound-savvy people like me, who are fixated on listening, it makes a fundamental difference whether I can hear music. If the sound affects me, then I feel at home in the world. The space that the sound occupies becomes mine; a kind of placemaking unfolds. According to Brandon LaBelle, only an appropriation of the street that moves and listens allows us to understand the urban environment’s architecture, objects and textures (cf. LaBelle 2008, p. 193).

3 | Since 2016, the queer-feminist bicycle collective RADS has been organizing Luna Rides in Vienna, collective rides during full moon with a group of FLINTA* people. What do Luna Rides mean to you, and do you experience them as a collective appropriation of the city?

Unfortunately, I have not been on a Luna Ride for a while, hopefully soon again. For me, cycling is a spatial appropriation practice; previously unknown areas are appropriated and cycled on and thus potentially become paths on individual cognitive maps of the city. Like almost everything during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Critical Mass came to a standstill as well. We were encouraged to ride in smaller groups. This is where you step in, together with all RADS with whom you jointly organized feminist rides in Vienna. In general, it is much nicer to ride at night, with fewer cars and less fumes. Everything looks more beautiful in the moonlight. When we were denouncing femicides, the “Kieberer” (the police) were never far away. I still remember the chase that started in front of the “Trafik” (tobacco shop) in the 9th district...

The start and end points of a soundride are important as well. For example, Biosphere had a spectacular starting point unknown to me, namely the Freie Mitte in the 2nd district. Likewise, I was hardly familiar with the endpoint at Schlingermarkt in Floridsdorf because the Viennese from the inner city rarely frequented it. With Biosphere, we conquered the square with a live concert by Flonky Chonks, who performed their underground hit on the climate apocalypse, Flächendeckend 30. Those who don’t know the song yet should definitely have a listen I found the final stop of this year’s Soundride in cooperation with Urbanize particularly great. During the ride, the DJs were transported in cargo bikes until we reached Rustensteg near Westbahnhof, another place where people did not linger but merely crossed over. The Rustensteg is a great balcony, a loge from which bikers can enjoy a magnificent view of the full moon.

4 | Cycling was a safe way to get around the city during the COVID-19 pandemic and a sign of protest in many cities, such as Ljubljana. What significance did the soundrides have to you during the COVID-19 pandemic?

As I mentioned before, I am very fixated on listening, and for lovers of experimental electronic music, your soundrides are a highlight and an improvement of collective cycling. They were also of great help in surviving the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. We collectively helped eachother against uncertainty, while retaining the distance by our means of transport. Apart from such crises, collective exercise in fresh air makes me feel at home: Raising money for a good cause, joining a demonstration, or simply listening to mobile music together and causing public annoyance. As you know, a considerable intersection between bicycle activists and experimental music makers in Vienna exists, who come together at concerts or in the Bikekitchen. Electronic experimental music can take many forms, but noise, ambient, sound art, post-club – sounds that oscillate between music and non-music –are rarely heard at a Critical Mass, at the Danube, or anywhere else in public.

5 | Over the last three years, you have witnessed me and Georg Hartl developing a special sound system for soundrides, with speakers distributed among several bikes. What aspects of the soundrides and sound systems seem particularly important to you?

It enables as many people as possible to participate in the sound. At the same time, the loudspeakers controlled via audio radio are also played as multi-channel audio. In specific architectural constructions (bridges, archways, ramps, etc.), special multi-channel listening experiences are made possible, which is impressive. Your routes are just as important, as they already enable or prevent experiences in sound and space.40 Sound systems have their roots in DIY culture, arrived via the Black Atlantic route41 (see Gilroy 1993), and are the result of a cultural technique of diasporic futurism, which are emphasized in my book on gabber (see Ludewig 2019). Sound systems are part of a tradition of appropriation, which concerns cultural identities and attitudes and are simultaneously visual, sonic, and mobile (cf. LaBelle 2008, p. 197).

According to LaBelle, our bodies react to music, we align ourselves with it, and orient ourselves to it: “Music thus aids in the alignment of the body with a self-defined choreography’ (2008, p. 190). Furthermore, music becomes an extension of our moving bodies and mediates the relationship between the self and the world, which is also expressed by the term ‘auditory latching.’ The resulting combination of music and image is usually not repeatable in this exact combination. Heike Weber, who researches the history of science and technology, interprets this as a rare space-sound experience (cf. Weber 2008).

For your sound rides, you invited various labels, organizers, DJs, or musicians to arrange a special soundtrack for a route (e.g., Ventil Records, Global Fyre, Lauter Lärm, female:pressure), which took us to places that were mostly unknown to me, such as a container loading station or a beach on the Danube. Architectures were encountered in a new way, and sounds were experienced anew. The use of self-chosen musical accompaniment by cyclists is a new means of experiencing and negotiating the environment.

6 | Soundrides always take place in a community with other cyclists. What do you mean by an audiosocial community?

Music and sound counter the rhythms imposed by existing architecture and public spaces with a personal structure and rhythm. I use the term ‘audio-social’ for my research on music communities; I adopted it from the British philosopher and music producer Steve Goodman (2005) and developed it further. Goodman is concerned with ‘networked collective bodies’ that form around musical speed, rhythm, and atmosphere. The sonic materiality of music is central. Ideally, audiosocial communities function as ecosystems; in addition to people, they also include music machines, media, practices, and spaces. Such communities aim to combat fear as a postmodern phenomenon through rhythm, speed, vibrations, and atmospheres. It is about collective rituals, not necessarily resistance, but resilience and intransigence. Through rituals of repetition, musical culture emerges, forms, and exists. Music and society, men and machines, come together in audiosocial communities. The terrain of the affective and sonic social is explored. For Goodman, rhythm and tempo are the necessary, albeit abstract, glue that hold the collective together. Rhythms and tempos glue this matrix of audio collectives together through loose sharing of resonance and frequency (cf. Goodman 2005, p. 142).

The riders of the sound rides are a ‘sonic body,’ a term often used in dub/dubstep research, such as by Steve Goodman or Paul Jason (2016). In contrast to the bodily experience of sound materiality and affectivity in the individual, the sonic body is always a collective body created, for instance, when synchronizing with other bodies on the dance floor or bikerides. The collective is at the forefront here, as innovations in music and art can never be achieved by a single person but always emerge from collective processes. Brian Eno describes this form of swarm intelligence as ‘senius,’ by which he denotes the intuition and inventiveness of an entire cultural scene (cf. Eno 1995, quoted in Goodman 2005, 147).

7 | The sound system plays a central role in sound rides. It provides the group with the necessary volume and visibility. What potential do you perceive in the volume and noise of a Critical Mass?

They take account of another important significance of the sound system, namely as ‘message machines’ and ‘total megaphones,’ as LaBelle has aptly described it: “in which customization expresses social and cultural dissent through appropriative tactics. [...] of carving a space for itself, one driven by rhythm” (LaBelle 2008, p. 200). While sound rides with experimental music do not focus on language or vocals, this was different on March 8. We were concerned with articulating demands or taking circumstances to the street that we found dissatisfying.42 Feminist Bikeride 2022 was preceded by an open call by you. You asked for thematic submissions and then put together a soundtrack for the ride and the subsequent protest to emphasize our demands acoustically. The snippets of speech and sounds that could be heard from the contributions dealt with underpayment, abortion, motherhood, and femicide. When we drove past passersby through the city, this was intended to be annoying and gain temporary attention. And it did; what an empowering feeling.

8| You produced a mix for the Soundride on March 8, 2023 – what impressions would you like to share with us?

The mix turned out to be too complex for the significantly larger number of participants this time, as we were part of the Take Back The Streets! bike demo.43 The soundscape, peppered with speech samples from feminist artists, nonetheless made for brief confrontations and ironic situations with passersby. Above all, with exclusively male police officers (!) who accompanied these demonstrations. Our community dynamically rolled through the city from Yppenplatz to the Votivkirche on bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, and other self-made constructions. As LaBelle puts it, our means of transportation become extensions of our lived identities as “signifying practices that aim to counter or correspond to what it means to be on the street, in full view.” (2008, p. 201). I particularly appreciate the diverse community of participants, including men. The feminist sound collages, including mine, are aimed primarily at men. To FLINTA*s, the seriousness of the situation and the need for change are crystal clear. Without the help of men, we cannot deconstruct the patriarchy. The neoliberal patriarchy forces them into constructed roles as well, to fuel capitalist growth. Labor power is being extracted from us all. The mix also aimed to demonstrate how patriarchy permeated everything, including the music we are listening to. Therefore, it influences how women* (female-read and female-identifying) feel and love. If you listen carefully, many of the female pop icons from the 1980s I grew up with transport submissive, if not masochistic self-images in their early hit records. It is a bit like the Bechdel-Wallace test; everything revolves around men; when you start to pay attention to it, it becomes omnipresent. That’s an astounding influence, especially when you are young. I wanted to include some of these songs in the mix, and inserted little glitches in the tracks to draw attention to the fact that something was wrong.

For outsiders, the cultural negotiation process is most noticeable at Feminist Bikerides. Still, the feminist dimension always resonates at the other soundrides, too, where the sound system is usually carried by female* bike messengers, often in specially designed superheroine costumes. Soundrides can make negotiation processes audible and tangible, not only because we form and organize ourselves according to rhythm in space but also because our visual and sonic appearance contrasts or conflicts with other images and impressions of the city. Just as music and its technologies are strongly gendered, this has also been true of mobility because freedom of movement is enjoyed above all, by those who have privileges and can afford it. Soundride is a format that precisely expresses this as social practice: “Respect Existance or Expect Resistance” (flyer bike performance, Feminist Bikeride 2023).

Karin Bijisterveld, “Acoustic Cocooning. How the Car became a Place to Unwind”, Senses & Society Vol. 5 (2)/2010, pp. 189-211.

Malte Friedrich, Urbane Klänge. Popmusik und Imagination der Stadt, Bielefeld: Transcript 2010.

Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness, London/New York: Verso 2002.

Steve Goodman, “Speed Tribes. Netwar, Affective Hacking and the Audio-Social”, in: Cultural Hacking, Franz Liebl/Thomas Düllo (eds.), Wien/New York: Springer 2005, pp. 139-156.

Paul Jasen, Low End Theory. Bass, Bodies and the Materiality of Sonic Experience, New York/London: Bloomsbury 2016.

Brandon LaBelle, “Pump up the Bass. Rhythm, Cars and Auditory Scaffolding”, in: Senses & Society, Vol. 3 (2)/2008, pp. 187-214.

Bianca Ludewig, Utopie und Apokalypse in der Popmusik. Gabber und Breakcore in Berlin, Wien: Institut für Europäische Ethnologie Universität Wien 2019.

Bianca Ludewig, “The Sonic Experience of Experimental Electronics”, in: Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! An Approach To Underground Music Scenes (Vol. 5), Paula Guerra/Sofia Sousa (eds.), Porto: Universidade do Porto – Faculdade de Letras, pp. 181-190. URL: https://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/19275.pdf.

Tia DeNora, Music and Everyday Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University 2000.

Heike Weber, Das Versprechen Mobiler Freiheit, Bielefeld: Transcript 2008.

Magdalena Scheicher began writing about the RAD Performance project, feminist urbanism, and theories of performativity in collaboriation with Conny Zenk. Several transdisciplinary collaborations are planned for 2024.

1 | In what context do you see the RAD Performance, and what do you understand by bicycle feminism?

The experimental, urbanist art practice of RAD Performance takes up elements of the bicycle activism of a ‘Critical Mass.’ It combines them with avant-garde artistic elements: A bicycle group equipped with mobile loudspeakers moves through the city as a sound performance. It is mainly FLINTA* who produce the volume and noise of a moving, collective body and a critical voice for the public space. The sound rides are audible and visible and develop a self-empowering and collective political force in which diversity and unity are celebrated, and gray areas and border crossings in urban space explored. The aim is to deconstruct predetermined routes, their implicit logic, and psychogeographical contours, and to intervene in the (acoustic) system. A transportation network becomes a space for performance and negotiation. The RAD Performance examines bicycles as a means of emancipation and counter-public production in the context of a vibrant Viennese bicycle history. Connections between movements on pedals and feminist aspirations have not only existed since recent times: the Viennese bicycle boom around 1900 already had an emancipatory aspect, and the first wave of the women’s rights movement was closely linked to the bicycle and the increasing mobility of women (Ebner 2022). Since then, the bicycle has become a medium that enables women* to occupy spaces in the city and redesign them together.

2 | What potential does the bicycle (still) have when it comes to queer-feminist approaches and aspects of public space?

Contemporary approaches to ‘bicycle feminism’ focus on ecological issues and redistribution of freedom of movement in urban spaces. They are loud, colorful, and queer – they create spaces free from neoliberal power relations and resist repressive patriarchal body politics.

Concerning the special format of RAD Performance, art-theoretical and art-historical perspectives are particularly interesting: RAD Performance uses new media and interfaces and locates itself within contemporary discourse-theoretical debates. As a performance art project, it ties in with a canon of avant-garde artistic modes of expression and their transdisciplinary and multimedia nature. In many cases, the history of performance art is a history of feminist protests. The production and appropriation of (public) spaces through performative practices has always been central to the history of performance, considering the interventions of the feminist avant-garde. In its subversion and innovation, the actionism of RAD Performance extends beyond purely symbolic staging. The production of gender differences is counteracted in a real and active way when female and queer bodies do not act as symbols of marginalization and objectification but as active and collective agents who take up space. In the sense of Hannah Arendt and Judith Butler, both the public sphere and gender are first produced or performed in socio-political processes (Arendt 1998, Butler 1990, Butler 2016, p. 15). Historical emancipation movements such as the suffragettes’ demonstrations at the beginning of the 20^th century always show a unique interweaving of the reciprocal relationships between public (urban) space, performative choreographic elements, and gender in the production of feminist counter-publics (Krasny 2019, p. 34ff). Bicycle activists mobilize beyond learned motives for movement and action. They explored the potential for resistance in the performative to dismantle the stability of the heteronormative order. The bicycle functions not only as a symbol of freedom but also as a vehicle and agent. It breaks with the convention and a renegotiates the distribution of freedom of movement.

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998².

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York/London: Routledge 1990.

Judith Butler, “Anmerkungen zu einer performativen Theorie der Versammlung”, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2016.

Veronika Ebner, “Die Fahrradfahrerin als Symbol der modernen Frau”, in: Universität Wien, fernetzt. Junges Forschungsnetzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte, März 2022, URL: https://fernetzt.univie.ac.at/20220315/, accessed on October 19 2023.

Elke Krasny, “Die Stadt: Bewegung befreit. Bewegungen befreien. Zur Mobilität von Frauen in der Metropole”, in: Alles tanzt. Kosmos Wiener Tanzmoderne, Andrea Amort (ed.), Wien/Berlin: Hatje Cantz 2019, pp. 31–39.

Fig. nr. 1: RAD Performance SPIRAL BIKE, 2023. Video: Ioana Tarchila

reposition ISSN: 2960-4354 (Print) 2960-4362 (Online), ISBN: 978-3-9505090-8-3, doi.org/10.22501/repos

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Bianca Ludewig, Magdalena Scheicher, Conny Zenk - A Collective Cycling Body Of Sound - 2024

Acknowledgements:

Further acknowledgments within the text: