During the performance of Big Blob at the Nagakutte Cultural Center in Nagoya, the owner of a new onsen in town asked me if I would do a performance in the spring for the one year anniversary of the hot springs. He requested Big Blob but I knew that it would be hotter so I proposed to do the Big Red performance. I enjoy doing performances it public locations without direct connections to the art world. I want my work to be accessible Many children followed the suit wherever it went.

I began to inflate the suit and soon many people came over to investigate.

Today I finished up the routing of the two chains that will power the “grass bike.”  The first chain goes around the chainring on the cranks to a rear cassette bolted below.  From that cassette a separate chain makes the long trip to the rear sprocket on the rear wheel.  The central cassette serves as a power transfer between the two chains.  I took it for a test ride around the parking lot outside the welding studio.  Everything seemed to work fine.  Now I will cover it in sheet metal and grass.

Since the portable lawn bike is a tricycle it required complicated steering linkages similar to a car. This is not a difficult thing to fabricate. It merely takes more time than a simple bicycle. The next step will be pedals, chain and a hasty test ride.

Now that I have completed Big Red, I am taking a short break from my sewing machine. I still have a lot to sew for my show in Kyoto in June but I have been thinking about a bicycle project for awhile now. I have made countless bicycles in all shapes and sizes including an Invisible Bicycle. My bicycle ideas germinated during my first stay in Japan after university. This time of exploration in fabrication and public use allowed for the foundation of the projects that I undertook in Texas during graduate school. I moved away from bikes and created other public situations involving video and recently inflatable structures.

This time the project is hardly about being a bicycle at all. It is a new absurd situation. I want a portable yard since I live in an apartment in Japan. I need a place to kick back and barbque. I could be flipping steaks while waiting for a traffic signal or rub my feet through the grass in rush hour traffic. Those activities are a ways off but the foundation has been laid. There are a few milestones in bicycle fabrication. The first is the connection and alignment of all the wheels so the bicycle can roll. In this case it is a tricycle and therefore has an intermediary milestone of fabricating the steering system. After this the connection of the chain and pedals nearly completes the bike. Usually the flimsy seat and inadequate brake are hastily fastened at this time for a premature test spin. Then everything is finalized and disassembled for painting and final greasing and assembly. This project is at milestone one.

After a test run at the University, I packed up my new inflatable suit, Big Red, and boarded the local train bound for Sakae in Nagoya, Japan. Sakae is a trendy shopping district and also has a large central park that runs north south through the city. Because of its central location many aspiring musicians, festivals, activists, takoyaki (breaded octopus) stands, and other people looking for a good time gather here. Everyone is looking for some Japanese magic.

Within one minute of flipping the switch on the 12v blower motors that power my suit, a group of young Japanese cyclists came over to investigate the ever increasing size of the red inflatable suit. The questions began in rapid fire succession, “What is that?” my answer, “It’s a suit.” again a question, “What is that?” answer, “It’s a suit.” again, “No, what is it?” final answer, “It’s a suit, and I will put it on right now.” I proceeded to hoist the large suit upon my shoulders and filled out the traffic corner. Instantly cell phones and other video recording devices went into overdrive and traffic stopped as I stepped into the crosswalk to begin my journey sourthward through the park.

The group of bicycle messengers invited me to a bicycle event, and since I am crazy about bicycles I went along. There were about ten cyclists as we made our procesion past many bands and food stands finally ariving at a more open area. This suit could be called a “pied piper” suit because children are drawn to it like magic and then stick to it like struggling insects on fly paper. Children caused new complications for this performance. The big red cones enticed the children to reach out and grab them as they swayed back and forth. This caused problems as a small sixty pound child could use the leverage gained by pulling on the cone and almost bring me to the ground. I tried to instruct the kids not to engage in this activity but short attention spans won out and we locked into a perpetuating dual.

After hanging out around the bike kids I decided to continue my journey southward. I reached a raised highway and turned left. Here the sidewalk narrowed and I turned my suit sideways in an attempt to squeeze through. Street lamps, traffic signals, bicycles, pedestrians, and other obstructions in the city made the journey difficult, but wherever I passed everyone ceased their activities and glued their faces to storefront windows to see my bounding redness pass by. Eventually I made my way to Tsurumai Park (鶴舞公園). Here I circled a fountain with a small band of children following step by step. Many parents had trouble getting their offspring to continue on their intended journey rather than remain captivated by my absurd presence. The first trial run of Big Red was a great success.

One of the peculiarities to notice in Japan is the level of cuteness of objects in the living world. Here everything has a “cute” value. I plan to make work for a show in Kyoto this June relating to this topic. Recently I entered a store called bulldog that sells many cute stuffed objects and snapped a couple pictures. Go cute, go.

Returning home from a gallery exhibition I entered the constantly moving arteries of Nagoya City which shuffle people and goods here and there with all the compassion of a well oiled cold machine. This is just one of the human transporters gliding down metal rails on a single spot of the globe among many large cities that specialize in human logistics. One may get a sense of helplessness and lose a sense of purpose in this situation. I can not say that line of reasoning is completely wrong but I do consider an alternative.

Carl Sagan said that we are all made of stardust. Pondering this simple but sublime statement one realizes that the machine is far more vast than any mechanical subway system in Japan. As I coasted home on my bicycle from the station I looked up at what stars I could see through the glow of humanity. A smile came across my face with thoughts of others looking back. This same sentiment has been said many times but is worthy of repeating. There is no purpose, but we might as well make the best of it. Take the motto of Tokyu Hands, an upscale hardware store in Japan, which claims to be a “creative life store.” Go create.

Big Red had its debut today. I did not announce the performance because of its status of a trial run. After unpacking the suit, I inserted the two modified 12v blower motors into their respective holes and connected the wire leads to the battery terminals in my backpack. After finishing some other preparations I flipped the two switches and the fans roared to life and the suit began to expand. This soon attracted the attention of quite a number of passing students. As the suit grew larger and larger the smile on my face grew in proportion. The wind whipped by and against my better judgment I donned the suit and took my first tentative steps in Big Red.

The two shoulder straps on the inside fit perfectly and balanced the weight of the awkward structure on my back. I could see from the three view ports and my legs moved freely in the space I carved out for them. The wind posed the only problem. I heard laughing and clapping and then began to put the suit through its paces. If something were to break I wanted it to happen now and not during a real performance.

I struggled against the wind and made a large circuit of the school grounds and even climbed a small flight of stair to test the limits of mobility of the suit. Remember the wind. The wind constantly tried to knock me over and this is not surprising considering the surface area of the suit. Twice it succeeded. The first time I recovered quickly but the second time the suit became airborne. Upon landing the wind continued to drag the suit with me held captive inside for another ten to fifteen meters. My legs waved frantically and eventually I came to a stop and ended to the testing program until nicer weather.

I deflated the suit and packed it into its custom made bag. Everything went fine. Now I have a very large portable performance object that can be transported by hand, bicycle or train. This will prove to be fun and I plan to take it into the city next week.