Velografie für Drais
Peter Weibel, 2017
The bicycle, one of the most important inventions of the past 200 years, enables individual and accelerated mobility using one’s own physical strength. With his Readymade Roue de bicyclette Marcel Duchamp rightly erected a monument to bicycles in 1913. That visual homage is now to be followed by a musical one, an ode to the bicycle. For this purpose, the storeys of the Karlsruhe Palace are transformed into staves on which patches of colour are cast to form notes. The note heads become wheels that eventually join up to form bicycles. The bicycle, as an instrument of movement, thus turns into a musical instrument. With their ringing bells and purring gears, the cyclists create a metropolitan symphony.