Mathematical and Sensual Knowledge, the Body and the City 1.1

Let us now return to the cycling term and look at it as an idea of time but also as an activity. Let’s look at it in time as a collector of the routine of the city and let’s look at it as the activity of [bi]cycling and return to the BiCi_N project which collects the cycles of the city via the bicycling activities of its many occupants as they cycle the city. The project writes the movements of the city in time and in movement as the numerous inhabitants of the city live their lives while it also maps the individual rotations and data of each user as they displace themselves within the city. Again, these inhabitants as body(ies) on bikes are equipped with GPS and audio/video extending into the city as mobile GPS/A/V drawing apparatuses drawing the city and their own bodies at full scale and in real time.

With GPS we get the absolute, certain information of the trajectory such as location, altitude, weather, heart rate, cadence, speed, duration... while audio/video captures the perceptive, bodily characteristics of the space such as imagery, ambiance, texture, light, activity, conversations, sounds, expressions, etc. Cycling as the city cycles, the inhabitants read and write their stories vividly and precisely in the BiCi_N project. Described and narrated through the imagery of the scenery and conversations caught on the A/V device and grounded with the details of the data inscribed by GPS, the city is revealed qualitatively and quantitatively as a system of routines and interactions. The city is captured in all of its qualities as “pictorial and sensual, intellectual and mathematical”. The relationship between the human body and the city body become an important point of departure for further exploration, something that has not been explored in the previously mentioned GPS projects, Amsterdam RealTime and Cabspotting.

What do calories burned, heart rate, and body mass mean as related to length and speed of travel, weather, and topography?
And what does latitude and longitude of user, distance to destination, and time, and latitude mean as related to track, bearing and heart rate?

Can we analyze this data of the human body and city body as interrelated an intimately connected? Can we analyze this data the way that a radiologist analyzes a CT-scan?