From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
cycling
This article is about the participatory cycling work. For bicycle motifs in adaptation, see Vehicles in Beach Surgery.
cycling is a seven-day durational participatory installation where urban riders traverse a fixed route once per day, each iteration introducing variations of distance, time, accompaniment, and sensory constraint, cumulatively enacting the eternal recurrence and breaking the cycle motifs through embodied return. Participants report the same streets revealing different spatial and temporal layers with each cycle—the city's ontological incompleteness rendered legible through repetition.
Premiered Newcastle, NSW, 2022 as a public artwork commissioned by Gregson Park community collective. Subsequent iterations occurred in Hyderabad, Dakar, and Istanbul (2023–2024), each adapted to local geography and transit. Cyclists report moments of profound disorientation at route landmarks, a phenomenon participants attribute to accumulated doubled vision effects (see Leif's doubled vision).
The work deliberately parallels Leif's trapped recurrence and Katita's mantra ("We can do it we can do it we can do it we—") by cycling seven rounds: six identical loops followed by a seventh that remains intentionally ambiguous, breaking or restarting the pattern. Some editions require cyclists to begin from different compass directions; others impose darkness, fog, or companion-switching protocols mid-route.
Documentation exists as video loops, GPS traces, and participant testimony; no fixed score. The work's format ensures no two cycles are identical, yet the route remains unchanged—a Möbius return.