Whilst at the Millennium Library in The Forum I discovered these advertisements of cycling photographs from the Norfolk Heritage Centre on their on-line site. After visiting the Archive collection before, I decided to visit it again to uncover more cycling documents from Norwich itself, hoping to find something similar to the British Pathé video. I loved seeing this photos because they represent to me memories of people's lives and you can see the personality of these people shining through. When I think of cycling I think of the modern bicycle, however with these I see a new side to the crafting of bicycles and I find it fascinating. I'm not too sure how I can develop from these images to create an active piece of work. I also found an archived book of The Amateur magazine which gave me monthly updates of how this cycling club was progressing. It gave me details of certain cycle runs, what certain members were participating in and some issues even had stories that their members had done. I think what I enjoyed reading the most out of these issues were the stories that were in some of them. I think this is because I find them like a little treat to read, it shows the personality of the person of who's it about and they weren't in every issue so to find one made it all the better. I know from researching on-line that the The Norwich Amateur Bicycle Club is still running and It's a possibility that I could contact them to provide 'stories' for my project. I absolutely adored this documentation of a father and sons bicycle journey from Norwich to Sunderland. It's these sort of accounts that interest me the most. I love how the memories of these two particular people are archived forever in this book and can be known to other people by it. I think this containing an account of a child's journey sort of connects with my survey when I was asking about cycling in their childhood. I think if I make my work active, I want it to be about childhood and be active for children, as they're my favourite target audience to work for.
Shipwreck from rebecca davies & leah fusco on Vimeo.
The lecture from Leah Fusco was very inspiring for this current project. I found it interesting in how she researched historical facts to create her artwork. I thought the films Fusco showed us at the end very inspiring. I loved the narration on top of her images.
The workshop task in the afternoon made me experiment with sound and it provided me a different approach to take this project. The sound clip I had used were of the pedals cranking.
After speaking with Fusco, we agreed that I should turn these into a moving image somehow as the mechanics and function of a bike are moving. I immediately thought to turn these into a spinning .GIF just like a bikes wheel.
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This day has really motivated me on this project and I feel like I'm aiming closer to what I want to do for it. I now know that what I produce at the end to be moving, however I'm not sure about the context yet directly as I'm not entirely sure what about cycling that I'm completely interested in.
The Norwich Dodgers Penny Farthing Cycling Club founded by Mr Kerrison. Norwich, Norfolk. M/S of a group of people with their bicycles, camera pans across to various vintage models. M/S man adjusting large bike. M/S of another man looking at wooden type cycle. C/U of man adjusting 'bedstead' type bike. M/S as a whole family mount a large tricycle. M/S of the group starting on penny farthings etc. The man mounts the bedstead and rides off. Various shots as they cycle along the road. I stumbled across this video on-line whilst looking up cycling in Norwich's history and found it relevant to Fusco's lecture as she too had used British Pathé as a research source. What I love about this video is it shows a group of bike enthusiasts from the past here in Norwich, and the quirkiness of their bikes they've crafted. This has definitely interested me further in looking into cycling from the past as I find learning how our ancestors lived a fascinating subject for myself.
Performing this survery helped me understand what attracts people to bikes and how they use them. It's interesting to see how much impact riding a bike has on people lives. It's been insightful for me to see this considering I'm not a bike owner myself.
The first thing I noticed in Norwich was the bicycles spotted everywhere, I think the reason why I so easily noticed them was because of how much I dislike them. I also know very little about bicycles which I find is a good sign because it provides me a reason to research different sources in order for me to find the right way to approach this. I organised all the images I collected into different categories as I think looking at bicycles in general is too broad. I believe by doing this, I'm creating a path I could follow for my project. Three of the categories I looked at below were ways bicycles were being used in the street, and I found it interesting how often shops around the City use bicycles for advertisement as it's something I've never seen before. I also found it interesting how some bike racks were completely rammed in some parts of the city, however the bike rack near Intu Chapelfield was nearly empty. Norwich City having a lot of pedestrian zone, I noticed how some people would walk alongside their bike and others would risk riding through. All of these represent people's choices of how they use their bike to their needs and I think this shows how personal bikes can be. Using Bicycles for Advertisements. Congregation of Bicycle Parking. Wielding Bicycles (Tandem).
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