I recently saw Jonathan Marshall's work at AMOA, a video with accompanying installation called the 'Book of Lenny' a chronicle of one survivor of a fictionalized apocalyptic-scale weather phenomenon called El Nada. Lenny the protagonist, builds among other things, this cycle-boat. It's a converted Schwinn Varsity married to a floorbase of salvaged fenceplanks on top of pontoons. Attention to detail is in no small supply: for example, rudder functions are taken into consideration, by connecting guidewires to the bike's front fork.
The amazing thing about this cycle-boat is that it is not all fiction. From the video, we see that it actually functions on water.
There is a certain way in which the contemporary cycling community values itself as a DIY bastion. "If the shit hit the fan, we could fix things ourselves." Or at least we could fix our bikes ourselves. If everything ran on bike principles then we could fix everything. The bike rider and the survivalist are not so distinct in society, Marshall brings attention to that connection through his fiction.
1 comment:
this guy stole this from a dream i had about this made up book i wrote about the apocalypse and this couple who bike across the country and then make a boat but the guy dies and the woman has to go across the ocean to iceland by herself not knowing if there is anyone one else alive in the world anywhere in a home made boat all by herself. it was called tour de ocean.
hey, is that what Jonathan Marshall really looks like in real life? what a hottie.
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