In this interactive installation, modified stationary bicycles are fitted with flat screen monitors playing videos. The viewer must pedal in order to watch the video, and can control the speed and direction in which the video is played through the speed and direction of pedaling. The video depicts Ben-Ner and his two children in a museum constructing a bicycle made from “borrowed” parts of famous artworks by Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Jean Tinguely, and Joseph Beuys. The artist and his children then ride their readymade construction across the city, using satire to comment on authority, value, mobility, and public space.
Guy Ben Ner, I’d give it to you if I could but I borrowed it, 2007, installation of three modified stationary bicycles fitted with flat screen displays and videos, 17:40 min, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Acquired into the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021.