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dude, dont take any of this personally or seriously at all. This is a forum, people say things here they wouldnt say in real life.
Eddie, I love you and want to ride you like a £10 bitch.
Think realisticly, what are WE gaining from this?
Some kind of spiritual (ie: nonsense) insight about the nature of man.
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A fair and pretty good defence of 'experimental'.
My challenge would always be that experiment, by it's nature seeks to arrive somewhere - and those in perpetual experimentation (not interested in arriving at a conclusion) are doing so for ulterior motives (the most common being artistic positioning). I was always bored by artists who spent all their time telling us they were experimental and never sharing when the experiment had run it's course and the results of the experiment. I couldn't help thinking of this as experimental for experimental's sake, if you know what I mean, a conceit, a style.
But maybe I am being unfair and a bit of a bastard, it won't be the first time I have taken the seed of a conceit and buried it in my own issues. :)
See above.
well na fair enough, the process is often is of far greater importance in the artistic world than its outcome...but for an experiment to be done it has to have a purprose and a conclusion which leads to it
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Most religions & cultures feature deprivation rituals of one kind or another. Jesus in the wilderness & Lent, Ramadan, Sabbath, vision quests, etc.
There must be something about 'going without' that helps in the process of greater understanding of oneself.
If that's the high concept, then the low concept is for No Bike Week to be a direct alternative to Bike Week, the somewhat stale and government-approved week of cycle advocacy activities that happens every summer. Instead of people being confronted with exortations to cycle, they would see what happens to people who give up for a week. The appaling side effects, the withdrawal, the DTs...the misery. I think this might be a much more novel way of putting the case, if the case needs to be put.
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Most religions & cultures feature deprivation rituals of one kind or another. Jesus in the wilderness & Lent, Ramadan, Sabbath, vision quests, etc.
There must be something about 'going without' that is helps in the process of greater understanding of oneself.
No, it is a mistake to say 'there must . . . '.
You may as well say most religions & cultures feature misogyny, so there must be something about subjugating women . . . .
It is a shit idea to ask people to stop doing something they like doing for some metaphysical/spiritual reason, really, and arguably so.
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Most religions & cultures feature deprivation rituals of one kind or another. Jesus in the wilderness & Lent, Ramadan, Sabbath, vision quests, etc.
There must be something about 'going without' that helps in the process of greater understanding of oneself.
If that's the high concept, then the low concept is for No Bike Week to be a direct alternative to Bike Week, the somewhat stale and government-approved week of cycle advocacy activities that happens every summer. Instead of people being confronted with exortations to cycle, they would see what happens to people who give up for a week. The appaling side effects, the withdrawal, the DTs...the misery. I think this might be a much more novel way of putting the case, if the case needs to be put.
Dude, i really think you're dreaming away a bit now.
I dont think you have a clear idea of what you actually want to achieve out of this, it sounds much more exciting in your head.If art has taught me anything, then it is to better have a good idea than a grand one.
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It's clearly raised some passions here, so I think it's something that will prove quite challenging.
I'll be announcing it on the broadcast on Monday night and we shall see what happens after that. Ultimately, what I'm looking for is about six to ten people who will take the plunge. Maybe it'll be dull and utterly predictable. Maybe something revelatory will happen.
I'm not urging anyone to do anything, just inviting people to consider...
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it just cost more not to use the bike ironically enough, we end up consuming more fuel, end up needing to take said the tube if you're on a tight time limit.
what more, there's a handful of us who commute 11 miles to and from place of work, imaging what happen if we have to walk, that´d take hours!
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see, taking a bike away from a cyclist for a week is not an idea!
taking a cyclist and a person who travels by public transport and swapping their commuting transport - is much fucking closer to an idea.
you need something you can compare it to, something that will have an outcome, something that may change minds, something where there will be more than one opinion (again, something to compare). See, this is shit load of material, you need something you can actually discuss.
What YOU will have is a pissed off cyclist who complains about everything, because hes the only idiot in the city paying money not to ride his bike, while everyone else seems to be enjoying their daily, comfortable commute. -
what more, there's a handful of us who commute 11 miles to and from place of work, imaging what happen if we have to walk, that´d take hours!
I wouldn't suggest that walking is the only alternative to cycling. Whatever it takes to do the things that you do, but no bike for a week.
Will you have a nervous breakdown? Will your legs turn to putty? Will you be permanently late? Will you suddenly enjoy all that extra time for reading novels on the train? Will you start savouring the dirty sweaty bodily contact on the tube? Will you enjoy the slowness of walking for a change? I want to find out.
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can I inline skate?
P.S your idea sucks as people use their bikes to get to work.
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I wouldn't suggest that walking is the only alternative to cycling. Whatever it takes to do the things that you do, but no bike for a week.
Will you have a nervous breakdown? Will your legs turn to putty? Will you be permanently late? Will you suddenly enjoy all that extra time for reading novels on the train? Will you start savouring the dirty sweaty bodily contact on the tube? Will you enjoy the slowness of walking for a change? I want to find out.
we just simply gain weight after a week, that's the most noticable outcome (and more hyperactive due to not using up all the energy on cycling).
what other alternative? bus? tube? taxi? car? the only alternative I can find without costing me anything is skateboarding, rollerblade, pogo stick, but there's no way I'm doing that for 11 miles to central London!
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wow, i can't believe how much you guys are trashing JackT's idea... i really don't think it's as bad as you're all making it out to be. for instance, this list of possible outcomes is quite varied and yeah - the people who take part in this "study" may be surprised by what happens.
Will you have a nervous breakdown? Will your legs turn to putty? Will you be permanently late? Will you suddenly enjoy all that extra time for reading novels on the train? Will you start savouring the dirty sweaty bodily contact on the tube? Will you enjoy the slowness of walking for a change? I want to find out.
though, to be honest, i really have no interest whatsoever in taking part because i know i will feel miserable and extremely inconvenienced as i do whenever i have to take public transport because my bike is broken or i have a visitor or something. though perhaps if i had resigned myself to it before the fact i might enjoy the reading time. nah, still not interested..
but i think JackT has presented a pretty clear point, and an experiment that does indeed have an end and an outcome, and he has used that word, "experiment," as well as the term "metaphysical" in a pretty concise and well-explained context - not in the vein of some loopy pretentious experimental art for the sake of nothing (which i hate as well). so yea, some of you guys really need to get off your high horses, er.. ponies, here.
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Jack, I would take part, but I don't live in london, or the uk. some people on this forum need to untwist their ovaries, man up and grow some balls seriously, is it that offensive that some one might ask you to change your rutine? want to make the world less anoying, how about beating up a totskyite stundent activist, that is a move we can all stand behind.
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About
No Bike Week
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Nothing. Apart from perhaps a deeper understanding of what a bicycle means in our lives.
When people go on a fast or take a vow of silence or go on a retreat. They're not 'gaining' anything in any conventional sense.
Rest assured, I'll be giving up riding my bike for a week too. And as I've ridden a bike in London almost every day since 1980 when I moved here at the age of 8 you don't need to tell me what a sacrifice it is to give it up.
All this is is an invitation to take part in an experiment. That's all. And perhaps a way of questioning the traditonal "Bike Week" advocacy events which I think are a bit lame.
I think No Bike Week could make quite revealing and entertaining radio - feeling the agony, the suffering. I'm also interested to see what it will be like for me as an everyday cyclist to walk in the shoes of other Londoners who don't ride bikes. Maybe I'll get a better idea of why they don't, maybe I'll remain baffled.
Ultimately I don't know. It's an experiment innit.