_The Breathing Bike_ is a prototype air-cleaning bicycle made in reaction to Beijing’s ongoing air quality dilemma. The bike is composed of a mixture of domestic and industrial detritus found in the artist’s studio, assembled onto the frame of China’s cheapest supermarket bicycle, “The Apollo”. As a hybrid artwork, it uses functional elements grafted together to talk about the current state of the built environment.

As the wheels turn, a wind generator in direct contact with the rear tyre begins to produces an electrical current. This electricity is fed through a series of industrial transformers to a static electric air-cleaning system that pumps filtered air to the rider via a fighter pilots respirator.

_The Breathing Bike_ comes to form a kind of dystopian bricolage through the use of ultra-cheap shortlived products and their subverted use. An IKEA ‘Dokument’ waste paper bin, found the world over in both homes and offices serves to filter large pieces of debris from being sucked in and to protect the rider from the high voltage electricity. The industrial production of these very products, with their high energy consumption and striving for rapid profits, is no doubt a major contributor to the air degradation itself.

_The Breathing Bike_ attempts to address the paradox of China breakneck speed of development by juxtaposing the industrial and domestic with the use of its functional components, powered via the human exertion of the body. Framed onto the socialist chassis of Chinas ever disappearing past – the bicycle.

Links: http://matthope.org/

Photographer: © 2013 Amanda Anderson

Matt Hope (UK), born 1976, is a British artist who lives and works in Caochangdi, an arts district in Beijing, China. He is known for elaborate kinetic art and sound art constructions that utilize the large-scale manufacturing factories in China.