The Graphic Method Bicycle' is a work of Dick Raaijmakers from 1979. On occasion of the publication of 'Dick Raaymakers Monograph' in 2007 the work was reconstructed by Bart Visser, Edwin van der Heide and Paul Beuk. A nude man sitting on a bicycle is pulled forewords extremely slowly by a motorized winch and steel cable at a speed of a fifth of an inch per second on a track some thirty feet long. As he moves, the cyclist is lifted up off the saddle by one of the pedals. This forces him to make a normal dismounting movement. At the same extremely low speed, he must swing his leg over the saddle without touching or leaning on it. The simple manoeuvre is stretched to half an hour and requires incredible concentration and effort from the performer.
The Graphic Method Bicycle is inspired by the work of the French physiologist and film pioneer Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1903). In 1878 Marey developed a technique which he called "chronophotographic" and described in his work La méthode graphique, to record physical movements in graphic time patterns. For example the fluid, living motion of a cyclist was dissolved into a series of dead, still, but continuous photographic images. In The Graphic Method Bicycle this technique is reversed and stretched out, a motion sequence captured in photography is brought to life. The 2008 performance is executed by two artists and former students of Dick Raaymakers: Bart Visser and Edwin van der Heide, and is produced with the help of Paul Beuk, Steim and V2_. Raaymakers’ oeuvre covers a wide variety of genres and styles, varying from sound animations for films to extremely abstract pulse structures, from “action music” to infinite voice patterns, from electro-acoustic tableaux vivants to extracts of music theater. He is considered as someone who combines disciplines such as visual art, film, literature and theater with the world of music. Raaymakers has created numerous electronic compositions, “instructional pieces” for string ensembles, phono-kinetic objects, “graphic methods” for tractor and bicycle, “operations” for tape, film, theater, percussion ensemble, museum and performance, artworks for offices and conservatory, and many soundscape compositions and music theatre productions, including some for the Holland Festival and for theatre company Hollandia. His theoretical essays are evidence of his profound interest in special inter-media connections. For instance, in his latest publication Cahier M (2000) Raaymakers elaborated upon the connections he saw between the 19th-century French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey, composer Pierre Boulez, architect Iannis Xenakis and the musical views of Piet Mondrian. One of his most important books is The Method (1985), in which he describes, in an exact but also poetic way, how motion, cause and effect, and their perception are interrelated.
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