24 June 2010

Project, dear boy: Bike-powered cinema in Brixton


There was bike-powered cinema in Brixton last night. The slightly weird French animation Belleville Rendezvous, which involves dystopic racing cyclists forced to work bike generators, was shown in Windrush Square.

And, appropriately, it was powered by cyclists forced to work bike generators. When someone had had enough and stopped pedalling, they had to be replaced by someone else, or the film would stop.

It was a Lambeth Council initiative for Bike Week, and was there to raise awareness of energy use etc.



All good fun; but the only awareness it raised in me was that (a) it started 45 minutes late and (b) a mud-coloured brick wall (on the side of a terrace displaying a historic Bovril advert) isn't the best medium for projecting a film.

You couldn't really see much, to be honest, and the barely audible soundtrack didn't offer any clues. Maybe the cyclists weren't pedalling hard enough.

Still, the audience of perhaps a hundred or so, enjoying the grassy warmth in T-shirts and summer frocks, seemed pretty laid back about it. Must be something in that Brixton air.

No comments:

Post a Comment