I think I found the helmet of my dreams: Daft Punk.

Rock Stars: no makeup and hair worries for them..

These helmets were commissioned by the Techno Houseband band Daft Punk- these helmets are custom designed stage props and cost over $14,000. While the helmets are reasonably simple in design, the cost of labor and materials make it impractical to mass produce and market them. In addition, Daft Punk owns the copyright and concept rights to the helmets.

The boys have a bit of fun with Juliette Lewis in this Commercial for the Gap

Designer/fabricator Tony Gardner- created the bands incredible headgear and sport complicated electronics capable of various LED effects enabling the artists to flash messages and images across their visors. Daft Punk stated that they donned their robot masks to easily merge the characteristics of humans and machines. However, one of the two artists that make up daft punk Chris Bangalter later admitted that the costumes were initially the result of shyness. "But then it became exciting from the audiences' point of view. It's the idea of being an average guy with some kind of superpower." When asked on whether the duo expressed themselves differently within the robotic suits, Bangalter stated "No, we don't need to.

Daft punk in their amazing movie "Electroma"

After a few albums and concerts the musical duo's outfits became slightly less complicated, consisting of simplified versions of the Discovery head gear and dark leather motorcycle styled jumpsuits designed by fashion designer Hedi Slimane.

In a brief nutshell how the lads had their helmets made:
1. A model shop cast the face of the musician. This was used to create a bust which was
used as a template for the design.
2. The next step was to modify a motorcycle helmet. The body was cut away to allow for
cables and electronics. Two pin holes were provided so the wearer could see out.
3. Clay models were created for all the unique parts. This included a back pack and an arm
band controller.
4. Electronic displays were designed using prototype PC board materials.
5. The LED display panels were assembled by placing each LED one-by-one into a plastic
sheet and glued into place. Each LED required three feet of wiring to connect it to power
and control circuitry. The finished panel was bolted to the helmet frame.
6. The LED cabling was routed around the “ears” of the helmet and out the back. The
helmet cables led down to the backpack where the main controller board was located.
7. The system was originally powered by batteries, but this was later switched over to a
power cord system.
8. The control keypad on the armband was a custom manufactured PC board.
9. Exterior plastic molding and finishing materials were custom manufactured by a special
effects studio to complete the helmet. Once these pieces were added, the helmet details
were touched up with paint.

Being very well crafted the units are still in use for performances even today.

Fred the...

From "Fred the motorcycle courier",

From one of the many Aussie Fred Gasset pages:

"The adventures of Fred Gassit (written by Simon O'Leary) have been printed in ustralian Motorcycle News (AMCN) every fortnight for the last 15-20 years. Recently he has been syndicated in the UK's Superbike magazine.

Fred is the ultimate multiple personality; everchanging, everdifferent, he is ALL motorcyclists and yet, curiously, no specific one. In him we see aspects of every known category of biker, even some you didn't know, and most of them none too favourable. He has appeared as everything from 'Fred -Russian Ice Racing Star' to 'Fred - Customs Officer', the list is, so far, endless. He is the perfect biking antithero; he is as non-bikers see us and how some of us see ourselves. Have you ever seen those ghastly, hideous, 'centerfolds' from Easyriders Magazine; where all the handsome, muscley, righteous Bro's roar across the Desert with their massive-breasted Ol' Ladies strapped to the back, like some vision of latter day cowboys (sounds of Bon Jovi swelling up in the background) ? Well, thats the Disease..............and Fred is the cure"

....to "Fred the bastard"

Youtube: Feet Forward group test.

"Grandma was a motorcycle courier"

"During the London Blitz, Grandma was a motorcycle courier working for the Ministry of Information" Via:jrjenks blog.

Comics: Captain America.

Footage from the 1979 T.V movie.

The Marvel comics directory claims "Captain America rides a Harley-Davidson custom special motorcycle, custom built for him by young motorcycle mechanic Jonathan Coulson of Queens, New York. Coulson modified the bike for the Captain in repayment for the Avenger's help in reconciling the youth with his father. Captain America then took it to S.H.I.E.L.D., where it was further modified. While living in Brooklyn Heights, Captain America stored the motorcycle in a service garage operated by Richard Dumbrowski. Captain America now keeps his motorcycle in his van and takes it wherever he travels."

Panel from Captain America #318 "war on wheels"

Bart van den Bogaard's Zess (zero emission scooter) concept.

From core77:

"Design for APFCT of two proposed Fuel Cell Scooters. APFCT is an American company that develops fuel-cell systems. For this I was project leader, responsible for design, frame engineering, model building and assembly, This was all done in Holland These scooters are designed build from ground-up to two working and usable prototypes."

..and from APFCT's site:

The APFCT 3rd generation scooter ZES III was begun in December 2001 and completed in July 2002. ZES III is a totally new integrated fuel cell/chassis scooter designed from grounds-up. Its modern European styling compliments its advanced fuel cell engine technology. Performance of ZES III was tested at 58 kph speed and 120 km driving range using 4 MH hydrogen storage canisters"

Bikes of burden.

From Streetuse:

"Designed to move people, bicycles and motorbikes are actually used to move almost anything that can be moved. In my travels in Asia I've seen bikes piled impossibly high with all manner of cargo, from livestock to cardboard. It's really astounding what a bike can balance and transport. Dutch photographer Hans Kemp has focused his lens on the motorbike cargo culture of Vietnam. He's gathered his collection of 148 examples of the unintended cargo of motorbikes into a very finely printed photobook, called naturally enough, Bikes of Burden. Here are a few examples from his book, which is also available on Amazon."

Music: I'm Gonna Getcha Good,

Wiki:

"The music video for "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" was shot in London, UK and directed by Paul Boyd. It was filmed on August 22 and 23, 2002 and debuted on CMT on October 4, 2002. The video is set in a futuristic setting, with Twain riding a motorcycle trying to escape a flying robot, at the end of the video Twain finds a clone of herself performing behind glass, which she breaks. The video was a success, peaking at number one on VH1's weekly countdown. The video won the Best Video of the Year Award at the 2003 Canadian Country Music Awards. The films animation was by Blur studios"

The Canjamoto BMW 1200 Scorpion.

Be afraid-The Canjamoto Scorpion

Via: motorcycling blog

"The Scorpion is a BMW R1200S chassis covered in striking body work by CANJAMOTO - (Canadian Jamaican Motorsports), a Canadian company based in Toronto did a little bodywork and came up with what they call the Scorpion.

It has no gauges, all information is to be provided via a heads up display, though different windscreens will be available depending on intended use. Street and Racing models will be available in 2008, the turbo version is said to produce 160 horsepower at the rear wheel. Weight is 410 pounds.

The goal of CANJAMOTO designer Richard Minott is to create motorcycles that have the presence and feel of exotic cars. Hence the smooth surface over the top of the bike which is intended to reflect the sensation of an exotic cars hood."

When is a motorcycle not a motorcycle? Dalniks.

The future we somehow missed..The Dalnik

Via: hedonia

"The term "dalnik" is unknown to most people, but they are a fascinating group of cabin motorcycles that have been constructed for the past 75 years, mostly in eastern Europe.(see the full Czech "Bohemiamobil" page here) Their design brief is a sensible one: a hybrid of motorcycle and automobile, with the virtues of both (at least in theory). The "golden age" of dalniks was during the 1950s and '60s, and the former Czechoslovakia was its center. These vehicles almost always seated two in tandem, with a motorcycle engine mounted behind the passenger, and a streamlined body around them. Some had openable flaps for the feet of the driver, when at rest, others used outrigger wheels to prevent falling over when stopped. A very few experimented with gyroscopic stabilizers.


The man one might consider to be the father of dalniks was Jan Anderle, a brilliant engineer with the Czech aircraft factory Aero. He built his first cabin motorcycle in the late 1930s, and over the years he created many more. His idea of building your own inexpensive two-wheeled car proved to be very popular with other Eastern European handymen after WW2, and many more experimental models were made. Anderle and his wife escaped to the West after the partitioning of Eastern Europe, but his wife persuaded him to return. Unfortunately, after they got back, he was arrested for treason and forced to work in the state uranium mines for the next 15 years. He spent much of the rest of his life in poverty and died in obscurity in 1982. Still, his influence over the vehicle type whose name he coined was immesurable.

The "Bat Dalnik" (above) This amazing vehicle from 1959 is sculpted in such a way that it looks more like a jet-powered auto than a motorcycle with a body. It had a 4-cylinder, 1200cc engine and took 5,000 hours of its creator's time; he had hoped to put it into production. The series of photos shows its development from wire forms to finished product.

This remarkable dalnik (above) was made by Czech mechanical genius Karel Horak, in 1966. It presents a very tidy and well thought out appearance. The outrigger stabilizer wheels retract into the body when underway. Horak used to commute to work in his dalnik and carry his wife and daughter in the back seat on weekends. He also designed and built his own desmodromic motorcycle engines, and worked on the development of an ingenious contra-rotating, meshed-rotor helicopter in the 1950s.

Peraves new Monotrace

Dalniks are still being made today! The Swiss company Peraves makes something called the Ecomobile (below). Powered by a 4-cylinder BMW motorcycle engine, this is probably the most sophisticated 2-wheeled vehicle ever sold to the public. They seat two in good comfort, contain a full roll-cage and are incredibly fast and manouverable. They cost about $60,000 and require a training course to operate properly. According to owners, they are the closest thing to flying that can be achieved on land. Jan Anderle was rediscovered by the Ecomobile company a year or two before his death, and he acted as a design consultant to them. He must've gained some satisfaction from seeing his work carried on into the 21st century."

The Ecomobile

Michael Tseng's Mopah.

The Mopah: It all looks so simple: and that's the beauty of it...

The Mopah was created in response to a visiting professional who scrutinized the amount of "blue sky" design amongst students. As David Sedaris pointed out in "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim," the danger in viewing romance movies is that we can all relate to falling in love. The experience is universal and the viewer is lead to a number of unhealthy comparisons, ultimately raising the question "Why can't our lives be like that?" The Mopah is an attempt to design an experience "like that." A reminder that industrial design can be about more than a tangible product, It can be about infusing our lives with something entirely personal: my journey, my music, my moment at the end of the movie when I drive away into the sunset with the perfect song playing in the background. Of course, in order to really prove this point, I needed to create a working prototype. The photos online display the functioning prototype and human reaction.

The typical scooter is designed for efficient transportation. The Mopah is about taking the scenic route. I wanted to alter the interaction of travel, with a soundtrack life isn't so mundane. I chose the Apple Ipod as the soul of Mopah, because of what the device stands for. Apple is turning product interactions upside down, making small improvements on existing devices that create massive change. The Ipod has become a cultural artifact... an expression of personality and ease of use, the flagship for interaction design as product innovator.

An interesting discussion I had with a fellow designer, prior to the Mopah project, was on how to prove that an interaction is a successful one. When building a sketch model or just creating a beautiful rendering the aesthetic feel is conveyed but not the interaction. I believe that until a design is created in vivid detail, the way we think a user will react to its use is purely speculation. The only way to experience Mopah is to hop onboard and take her for a spin. For this reason I decided to make a fully working prototype. My senior thesis was right around the corner so I made plans to go from ideation to final prototype in just 10 weeks (the length of the course). I knew I had to focus on specific parts if I were to get finished so I decided to push the aesthetics off to the side and make the interaction as real as possible.Mopah isn't about creating a beauty queen, it's more of a personal exploration in what it takes to make an idea real. That's not to say that I feel the aesthetics are lacking. I went with a much more personal simplistic style. I was influenced heavily by the furniture designers at my school, I always admired their use of detail as a source of style, the placement of a screw can make all the world's difference. Material selection was very important to me, which is why I went with bamboo and aluminum, two materials that may be considered luxurious in the grand scheme of mass production. The built in speakers and the boxy back pay homage to the beautiful wood speaker boxes of the 90's.

The essence of the scooter is that it's not just a motorized bike with speakers, instead its a mobile boom-box. It's an outlet to freedom beyond mere transportation, a way of unlocking the limitless possibilities we have in life. And in conclusion it's a scooter powered by an Ipod, a detail which enhances the playfulness of the design.

Mopah doesn't like being taken seriously.

Via: Cyberpunk Review

"Akira Club is an art book featuring cover art, sketches and outtakes from the paperback Akira collections. It’s a little pricey at thirty bucks when most the artwork is in black and white, and another set back is the format, which doesn’t match the Akira books. Though mostly presented in black and white, Otomo Katsuhiro’s artwork will blow your socks off. The artwork in Akira Club is incredibly detailed and the author’s commentaries and sketches really show you how much work has been put into the product. While penned many years ago, it doesn’t look a bit outdated. Akira is an epic piece of work at over 2000 pages and has won awards and prestige around the world. The animated movie based on the manga re-introduced the west to Japanese animation in the nineties. The quality of animation mirrors that of the manga and although large parts of the manga were cut from the movie, it still gets the story through to the viewer pretty well.

Background: The world of Akira is set after world war three and the destruction and rebuilding of Tokyo. Themes include transhumanism, corruption, low life and high tech and Akira comes across as incredibly cyberpunk, mostly focusing on the life of those on the ground in a super industrialized and militaristic Neo Tokyo. The artwork in Akira Club pretty much represents these themes in great detail. There’s a contrast between the giant, symmetrical skyscrapers which dominate the Neo Tokyo skyline and the life on the ground where there are a lot of organic and seemingly random shapes. There’s also a recurring theme of order put in chaos, like the front cover image; smooth motorcycle parts are jumbled together in a giant mess creating disarray where there once was a finely tuned machine, everything put together neatly.

A lot of the magazine covers show a destroyed Neo Tokyo behind mostly young people. The city being destroyed by a secret weapon created by the government, this gives a pretty strong image of the world being handed over to future generations ruined by our predecessors’ lust for more power through technological advances.


Section One: The first section collects several full colour paintings of magazine and book covers, T shirt designs and promotional posters, supplemented with preliminary sketches and short comments from the author; Otomo Katsuhiro.

Section Two: The second section is the biggest and focuses on the covers used for each chapter when Akira was serialized in Young Magazine. These weren’t included in the paperback collections because they’d break up the natural flow of the story, so having them collected here is kinda nice as the artwork is generally stunning. These do not include comments on the artwork but little musings on life by the author, which I personally found incredibly uninteresting.

It's all about the bike...

Section Three: The third section collects all sorts of odd artwork used in advertising and merchandise, there’s a lot of great art, but all in all it’s not as interesting as the last section of the book. Also included here are notes on the translation of Akira.

Section Four: The fourth section is probably the coolest out of the whole book, although I wish it were longer. Titled, “Unpublished Works,” it shows panels and scenes that were never included in the finalized Akira comic books, some pages include parts that were included in the serialized version of the comic, but were cut from the paperback collections.

The Bottom Line: Having “read” through the book, I feel a little let down; it’s like there’s something missing. The artwork, though awe-inspiring, is as noted mostly in black and white, and I feel there could have been more colour illustrations put in to compensate for the large number of cover illustrations from Young Magazine. The last part of the book could also have been a little longer. At two thousand pages, I’m sure there is more unpublished material than on display here. I’d like to see the parts excluded from the paperback collections in better detail, preferably in entirety, as I’m sure others are as well. I’ve only had access to the translated collections and would like to know what I’ve been missing out on."

In the future -there will be no wheels.

A blurry pict of the future

Via: Newscientist

"Martin Buehler has created a prototype jockey-ridden hopping robot that controlled forward speed, hopping height, and pitch balance, the jockey did sideways balance and steering.". It looks like lots of fun, if slightly dangerous. It's a shame they don't seem to have made two, so we could see them race."

Youtube: The Motorcycle doctors-Riders for Health..

Film from Goodmagazine. Riders for Health can be contacted here.

Fold tab a into slot b: The Contra Papercraft bike.

Via: Urbanartcentral

"Here's an excellent papercraft we unearthed from the internet on the Contra video game series. Originally released in 1987 as a side scrolling shoot-em-up, Contra has released numerous installments that has captivated action gamers since."

Daryl Tearne's concept bike.

"23 year old Industrial Design student Daryl Tearne chose to design a Concept Motorcycle as his third year thesis at Humber College - an amazing adventure that took him to Amsterdam to work with the designer of the Yamaha MT-03 concept bike."

The motorcycle in cinema-The Venus Wars.

Wiki:

"The Venus Wars (ヴイナス戦記 Vinasu Senki?) is a 1989 science fiction anime film. It is directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, co-written by Yuichi Sasamoto and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and stars Gorô Naya and Anna Alba. Loosely based on the manga by Yasuhiko (translated into English by Dark Horse Comics in the early 90s), The Venus Wars gained recognition in the United States when it aired in heavy rotation on the Sci-Fi Channel "Saturday Anime" movie block in the late 1990s. Makoto Kobayashi provided the mechanical design of the films "Monobikes"

Everybody loves a monobike

Story:
In the year 2003, a collision with the giant comet has transformed the surface of the planet Venus. In the year 2089, Venus has been colonized and divided into two continents, Ishtar and Aphrodia. Susan Sommers, a bubbly reporter from Earth, travels to Venus hoping to get a scoop on the military tensions that have arisen between the two nations. She arrives in the Aphrodian capital of Io shortly before the city is invaded by the forces of Ishtar, led by General Donner.



Meanwhile, a brutal, Rollerball-esque racing game is being held in a local stadium. One team, the Killer Commandos, is led by hotshot Hiro Seno. The game is disrupted by the invasion and the team quickly evacuates. Hiro's teammate Will picks up Sue on the way and takes her to the garage where the rest of the team is lying low. The invasion of Io is completed in one day, and the politicians, police, and press submit to Ishtar's authority. The city is put under martial law and a curfew imposed. Many of Io's citizens, including Hiro's girlfriend Maggy, try to pretend that nothing has changed since the invasion, but Donner's iron grip on the city is too tight to ignore.


Hiro visits his teammate Jack, who's staying in his uncle's high rise apartment. However, the police see them as trespassers and lead an unprovoked assault against Hiro. He makes a daring escape from their custody, but not unscathed; his leg is pierced by a bullet and he barely makes it to Maggy's home before he collapses. She tends to his wounds, and Hiro shares a few secrets about his past. A photograph of Maggy's father's spurs memories of the farm where he was raised; Hiro reveals that many of the terra-forming farms funded by the Aphrodian government were frauds simply meant to secure land away from Ishtar. That their crops continually kept failing since the plants couldn't endure the constantly changing weather conditions of the planet (despite convincing claims from so-called government sources)! He bitterly notes on how only the politicians made any money out of this situation, that all governments are corrupt, and expresses his frustration and anger at the state of the world. His words trouble Maggy; so much so, that she bursts into tears and collapses into his arms in a crying fit! Hiro comforts her, leading to both sharing an embrace and a passionate kiss. The moment is ruined when her father returns from work; Hiro is ushered into a back room and overhears the ensuing conversation. Maggy's father is a bureaucrat, and he's pulling strings to have the two of them evacuated out of Io as he did with her brother and mother. Maggy is horrified at the thought of abandoning her friends and defiantly stands up for them against her livid father (who views them as just self-centred adrenaline junkies), before he furiously shouts her into silence as Hiro secretly storms out.
Meanwhile, Miranda of the Killer Commandos discovers that their manager, Gary, has been secretly smuggling arms into the city. Raiding his cache, she reveals her plan to demolish the Ishtar tanks that are parked in the old stadium. Gary says that the Commandos would be fools to try such a suicidal mission, but Hiro likes the idea and inspires his teammates. The Killer Commandos lead an assault against the tanks, but underestimate the strength of Ishtar's military. Jack and Gary are killed in the melee, and Hiro nearly shares their fate. At the last minute, however, the team is saved by the Aphrodian Freedom Force, which had also been planning to attack the stadium that night.



Sue and the Killer Commandos are forcibly recruited by Lt. Kurtz, who thinks that their skills as monobikers would be useful in his Bloodhound Squadron. Tensions run high among the Killer Commandos and the team is divided; Will and Sue think that it's important to fight for Aphrodia's freedom, but Hiro and Miranda want nothing to do with war. Will is called out on a mission and Sue begs him to take her along. He instead convinces her to wire her camera to his monobike so he can film their attack. But to Sue's horror, Will disappears in battle. Sue steals a buggy to search for him on the battlefield, only to stumble upon the terrible truth of his death.
Upset over Will's fate, Hiro and the Commandos demand to be freed from the Freedom Force's custody. Lt. Kurtz and Hiro quickly strike up an animosity, and Kurtz challenges Hiro to a race across a ravine in their monobikes. Despite having a ten second head start, Hiro is taken out by Kurtz. Nevertheless, Kurtz is impressed by Hiro's raw talent, and makes him a deal: he will release the Killer Commandos on the condition that Hiro joins the Bloodhound Squadron. Hiro grudgingly accepts his offer, and says goodbye to Miranda and his friends.

Back in Io, General Donner is visited by Sue, who requests an interview with him for the Independent Press on Earth. Once alone with him, Sue pulls a gun and threatens to kill him in order to avenge Will and all the other innocent people who have died in the war. She fails to release the safety however, and is quickly disarmed and arrested. Displaying his sadism Gerhard accosts Sue, snatches away her firearm, then discharges her pistol inches from the side of her head, before putting it to her skull and pulling the trigger, cruelly revealing he's used up all the bullets.


Kurtz leads the Bloodhound Squadron in a surprise and intense strike on Io. Kurtz is disabled, but Hiro manages, through sheer luck and skill, to corner Donner's tank and destroy it by getting Gerhard to fire on him (raging that he shall not be beaten by children), with his shots missing Hiro and striking a runway that collapses ontop of (a screeching with frustration) Gerhard in his tank. With their leader dead, the Ishtar forces are quickly disbanded and Aphrodia is freed from their control. Kurtz and Hiro end their animosity and Kurtz gives Hiro his monobike as a sign of goodwill. While driving through the streets, Hiro encounters the recently released Sue, who's being evacuated to Earth. She thanks him for all of his help, and he tells her to come back and visit Venus again.

Following Sue's tip, Hiro makes the long trek to a refugee camp; there, he and Maggy are happily reunited (thanks to her siamese cat Andrew). Back on Earth, Sue has given a world exclusive on the Venus Wars. She plans to spend her vacation on Venus so she can rejoin her friends."

Kaname Suzuki's "Foggy" BROS specials.

Akira inspiration strikes again

These Incredible Honda-Hawk based customs come from Japan's Kaname Suzuki's BROS shop. But (once again) we are unable to get any more details or specs even with hours of obsessive googling. These picts and imfo came from Steve Beatty's Hawk GT page.

The Fenir-Close up.

A few weeks (months?) ago we did a post on the PS2 game hero Cloud's bike the Fenir from the Final Fantasy series and movie. Now we have more detailed pictures of the incredible Keita Amemiya designed bike created by computer artist Wen-JR and featured on moto.caradisiac. Enjoy!

Here's a rendering showing the bikes open "doors"-allowing access to our hero's rather large swords.

Performance Art.

By Carol Vogel from the NYtimes:

"As giant billows of smoke began filling the cavernous drill hall of the Seventh Regiment Armory one recent evening, there was no panic. Rather, there were shouts of exultation, along with what sounded like a chorus of foghorns.

“Look, it’s going in the right direction,” said Doreen Remen, a founder of the Art Production Fund, a nonprofit organization that presents unusual public art projects. With her co-founder, Yvonne Force Villareal, and the artist Aaron Young she gazed upward with relief as the smoke began filtering out the open windows along the rafters.

Four smoke machines had been brought in to simulate the conditions that could develop as 10 motorcycles ride around the 55,000-square-foot drill hall simultaneously. For Thursday evening’s test run the belching, thunderous machines had some competition: Wink 1100, a professional stunt rider who performed the trick sequences in the 2003 movie “Biker Boyz.” Wearing Tom Ford sunglasses, baggy blue jeans and a red-and-blue sweatshirt, he was enveloped in his own haze of smoke as he spun the wheels of his Honda CBR 954 on a designated patch of painted plywood.

It was the prelude to a turning point in the Seventh Regiment Armory’s 128-year history: the first performance art piece ever presented there, masterminded by Mr. Young. Tonight 10 motorcycle stunt riders wearing sunglasses will ride for seven minutes on 288 panels of painted plywood covering the drill hall floor as 500 invited guests, including members of Hells Angels, watch from the bleachers above.

Picts from supertouchblog

With neon lights attached to the undersides of their bikes, the riders will follow synchronized movements choreographed by Mr. Young. The burnouts from their tires will yield colorful swirls, zigzags and snake patterns on the plywood panels, which have been coated in seven layers of fluorescent reds, pinks, oranges and yellows and then sealed with two coats of black acrylic.

Titled “Greeting Card,” after a 1944 Jackson Pollock painting that has its own tangle of spirals, the work is described as both a performance piece and an action painting. When the riders have finished, they will have created a giant fluorescent multicolored floor piece that will remain on public view through Sunday. A film of the performance will be shown on a plasma screen in the hall.

It is the first in a series of art exhibitions and performances planned for the building by a new nonprofit group, the Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy, which in December took over management of the crenellated red-brick behemoth on Park Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets from New York State. The group still plans to hold the art and antiques fairs that have attracted throngs for decades, but Rebecca Robertson, the conservancy’s president and chief executive, suggested that the armory could become even more of a cultural destination.

“The armory is neither a white-box gallery nor a proscenium stage,” she said. “Here you make it up. Luckily this space allows work that can’t be seen anywhere else in the city.”

For now, she said, the conservancy is in the research and development phase. Still, workers have been cleaning the neglected building, and air-conditioning has been installed in the drill hall for the first time, eliminating the need for the special trucks that once piped in cool air during art and antiques fairs. The $150,000 budget for “Greeting Card” is being covered by a group of sponsors that include Tom Ford, the fashion designer, and Sotheby’s.

Mr. Young, 35, a conceptual artist and sculptor, first began talking with the Art Production Fund about the piece last December at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair. “We didn’t think we could do this in New York,” Ms. Villareal said. “It required a large space with the audience watching the performance from above.”

But as soon as she and Ms. Remen heard that the armory was seeking art projects, they met with Ms. Robertson. “Her reaction was, ‘Bring it on,’ ” Ms. Villareal said.

Working at minimum wage, gallery assistants and students from Barnard and Columbia spent three days last week painting the panels. “It was like camp,” Ms. Remen said.

Thursday evening’s smoke experiment was one of many trials and rehearsals. To ensure that the smoke from the motorcycles will not endanger the audience, the glass has been removed from the 28 windows high in the rafters of the drill hall. Still, guests are warned in small letters on the bottom of the performance invitation: “A ventilation system has been installed to reduce the smoke and exhaust. Earplugs will be provided for the noise. If you are sensitive to either, please request a protected viewing space.” In addition to a glassed-in room for warier viewers, the Art Production Fund will furnish the audience with face masks.

Mr. Young said that given the challenges of the synchronization and the safety concerns, nothing had been left to chance. A month ago he did tests in an empty parking lot in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium.

To inspire the riders involved in “Greeting Card,” he gave each a photocopy of the Pollock painting. “The spiral motion is the template,” he said. The 10 bikers — five stunt riders from Team G Unit along with five friends — will each have a designated 23- by 43-foot area on which to perform zigzags, power slides and circles. The neon lights on the bottom of each bike will allow the audience to follow the movements through the smoky haze. “I want it lit like a boxing rink, very hard-edged,” Mr. Young said.

“Hopefully this will appeal to people who know nothing about motorcycles or about art,” he said as he examined shreds of tire rubber embedded in some of the wood panels, a byproduct of Wink’s brief motorcycle whirl.


Although Mr. Young does not ride himself, it is not his first artistic encounter with motorcycles. In 2000, as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, he created a piece called “High Performance,” enlisting a group of cyclists he met at a local motorcycle bar called the Zeitgeist. “I got them drunk until they said yes,” he recalled. The riders performed burnouts in a studio that was once used by Diego Rivera. The result was a 3 1/2-minute video that was eventually acquired by the Museum of Modern Art.

When it is time for the 288 panels to leave the armory, Mr. Young plans to select about 20 of them to sell through the Art Production Fund. He and the fund will split the proceeds. Before the panels are sold, he plans to seal each one with a coat of clear resin.

“That way it will keep the hot melted rubber fixed,” he said. Even though the ride itself will last only seven minutes, he explained, the panels will be “archival.”

The art of Akira Yamaguchi.

A soldier from the meiji period meets the rubber with the road.

By Monty DiPietro from: Assembly Language

"Wars are fought by armies of men, but equipment has always been critical to their ability to perform in battle. Now, imagine a time machine which could outfit Genghis Khan with rocket launchers; or Napoleon with a division of Panzer tanks -- that would change human history, wouldn't it? Tokyo artist Akira Yamaguchi explores the idea from a Japanese perspective with the hallucinogenic history lesson that is his new exhibition, "Japan/China and Japan/Russia Fantasy War Drawings."

Yamaguchi, 33, has long been working with the juxtaposition of different historical eras in his expertly-crafted and finely-detailed ink on paper drawings and acrylic and oil on canvas paintings. There is a real sophistication to his process -- the artist does not simply drop a salaryman into a Tokugawa pastoral scene, rather he seamlessly integrates different and disparate period moods, clues, and symbols, and does this so cleverly that it is often not apparent until one closely inspects the pictures. For example, a man in a yukata, sitting on zabuton in an old izakaya, with the mama-san hovering over him holding a tray of not sake, but milk. Other examples, such as the Russian cavalry man riding a half-horse, half-motorcycle, juxtapose in a way that is not as subtle but no less well-integrated.

Yamaguchi also fuses different artistic styles in his drawings -- we see the lack of perspective characteristic of early Yamato-e paintings; and we also see treatments in the style of contemporary media such as manga, and the virtual imagery found in anime and video games.

Yamaguchi says his work is meant to be humorous, but also aims to criticize the wholesale embracing of Western ideas that took place during the Meiji Era, to the detriment of traditional Japanese culture. He smiles and shakes his head when I ask him if he is a "u-yoku" (right wing ultranationalist) who spends his days driving around in a big black bus spewing ear-splitting anti-foreigner rhetoric out of a battery of loudspeakers. Indeed, Yamaguchi, like fellow Mizuma Gallery artist Makoto Aida (who has painted pictures of Japanese Zero fighter planes, flying in a figure eight formation over a fire-engulfed New York City), seems less attracted to the Japanese nationalist program than to the jarring aesthetic possibilities it provides.

Indeed, artists like Aida and Yamaguchi may well be the next big Japanese contemporary culture export, as their multi-leveled work makes the mostly saccharine stylings of this country's current art stars seem feeble, feckless. This year Yamaguchi did the cover art for acid jazz musical group United Future Organization's latest CD, "V." With an artistic approach well-suited to scrutiny and interpretation, it is a safe bet that we'll be seeing a lot more from this talented artist in the near future."

"Werner is a fictional character, appearing in a number of German comic books and animated films. He was created by Brösel (Rötger Feldmann). Werner is the most successful German comic character of all time with over 10 million books sold and over 13 million film admissions.

The Werner books are known for their anarchic humour, often based on Northern German dialect and puns.

Seems like a pretty clever fella-Werner

The character of Werner is based on Brösel's own experiences. Werner is an unemployed biker who likes to modify his motorcycle — which constantly gets him into trouble with the police and the TÜV. Werner also likes to consume large amounts of beer (known as Bölkstoff in the comics). In his younger years, Werner was apprentice to plumber Meister Röhrich - the situations and characters in these stories are based on Brösel's brother Andi's apprenticeship years."

The softheaded little twit is so popular he even has his own music video...

"The bike was drawn in a biker comic (see above), but the artists brother was so enamoured with it - that he brought it in to existance!

The cylinder came out of an old tractor, as did the wheels, the tires were once made for a Ford Model A and had spent several decades in storage somewhere, the seat is an actual shovel and the fork is made from forged iron and ash (wood). Although it runs on petrol, this looks more steam-ish than most steam motorcycles- it goes ka-tchunk, ka-tchunk like real machinery schould.."

...to reality

(The bike has a) "Custom made engine block, internals, cylinder head. DOHCs operating four valves via rocker arms. Generator from a Japanese compact car. Silencers (yes, they are there) came from dirttrack bikes, one in each pipe.

1440 cc displacement, the original aim had been for 1000. Actual Vintage Ford Model A tires, found virginly wrapped in paper in a Danish tire store. Modified Harley brakes and a Harley transmission. Fork made from well-aged ash, and forged iron. Due to a lack of space, the petrol tank is part of the handle-bar arrangement. The old look of most of the parts was achieved by means of heat and applying fiendish concoctions of various brown-ish metals.

The engine is, obviously, a stressed member, and due to a lack of foresight by the designers, the four bolts holding the cylinder and head assembly to the block are the only thing that keeps the bike together (note how the steering is bolted right to the cylinder head, as are the frame tubes). it delivers about 60 something hp or thereabouts, makes a noise like a steam-engine breathing angry spanners and is, of course, utterly and totally illegal in any conceivable way."

Game on: No more heroes.

Via: 1up.com:

"No More Heroes: The lead character of the Wii based game, Travis Touchdown, is going to stir up some trouble rather than fill the typical hero role. Travis, a hardcore geek, wins an Internet auction for a powerful beam katana, which he uses to boost his career as a hit man. After killing resident cool guy Helter Skelter, he is ranked number 11 by the UAA, the governing body of assassins. Providing him with rank matches is Sylvia Christel, a French-born agent of the UAA.

Travis Touchdown's bike-The "Schpeltiger"

The action takes place in Santa Destroy, a town on the west coast of America. Travis can explore the area freely, either by foot, or on his monster machine called a "Schpeltiger" -- a huge motorcycle resembling something from The Transformers. The town is full of villains who have become distanced from society, and through searching for weapons -- and making money -- Travis tries to protect his own existence in any way possible."

Keblitis Media's hoverbike.

Once more we have a great computer illustration, this time from keblitis Media ( a team of U.S. located graphic designers with backgrounds in architecture, engineering, and artistic design.) No description of the bike is given..but it still looks like fun nonetheless.

Heather Anderson and the Whispering Lighting.

From Electrifying Times:

"Heather Anderson was born and raised in a small town just north of Toronto, Ontario. The rural setting allowed her access to many different forms of motorized sports during her youth. She has ridden everything from dirt bikes to snowmobiles, her family’s Odyssey being her favorite, that is until this year.
In her spare time from job as a credit processor, Heather enjoys sports, camping, fiddling with her artistic side, and a good horror novel. She also has plans of returning to university.

Watching her brother perform many stunts and trick riding on his motorcycle encouraged the extreme gene in Heather, pushing her craving for the “Need for Speed”. After helping in the pits for 4 years with her boyfriends mid 10’s 1984 Capri RS all motor ICE car, she was wanting a ride of her own.

Then in August of 2003 she was introduced to Raymond Knight of S.V.A. Power Products at the DaSilva Racing Shootout. Raymond had been testing and tuning his 24vt electric ‘87 Ninja, named Whispering Lightning. After laying down some consistent times, he was looking to lighten the bike. Since Raymond weighs in at 260lbs, the easiest answer was to change riders.

The bike’s hard launches scared off the other male riders at the event. Heather happily accepted the offer on the basis that she could test it a few times first. After a month of uncooperative weather, Heather finally made back to the track.

At the age of 22 Heather made her drag racing debut on Oct 11th, 2003 at St. Thomas Drag Way in Ontario, Canada. Her very first run was an impressive 14.095 at 41.74mph. She then backed that up with a 14.099 at 41.86mph. This made her unofficially the fastest 24vt motorcycle in the world.

Later on the Oct. 21st she would run an even faster 13.524 in the 1/8 mile. However the bike was operating with sealed free acid batteries. The batteries did confirm that the low voltage problem on the negative side was definitely battery related. For fun a full run was then done, Heather ran 13.561 in the 1/8, and 23.091 at 48.38mph in the ¼ mile.

With her need for speed not yet fulfilled, Heather dreads the long cold Canada winter, as it stands between her and the 48vt upgraded Whispering Lightning. Her goal is to reach the 100mph barrier by the end of next season. Whether that will be enough to satisfy this brown haired, blue-eyed beauty, only time will tell."

Korean Marketplace CargoCycles.

From Michael Carnassus via Streetuse:

"These motor bikes are used to transport stuff around Dong Dae Mun Market in Seoul. I love the way that the people in the market have this fiercely independent spirit of free enterprise but also have these complicated symbiotic relationships with one other. These bikes are the grease that make the market smooth, you see them ferrying ridiculously big loads for 500 metres or so to where the products are needed.

Note the carefully street modded/welded carrying beds with 90 degree load supports. I've seen fridges, washing machines and dish washers carried on these things without trouble, even the bicycles. Note the extended rear swing arms with twin suspension coils/springs."

this looks like a job for...

Our hero Tetsuya Tsurugi -his giant robot Mazinger lurks in the background-but its the jet-bike we are here for.

Wiki. Book and anime television series by manga artist Go Nagai, made as a direct continuation of the successful Mazinger Z series. It was aired on Japan in 1974, immediately following the end of the first Mazinger series. It lasted for 56 episodes."

The mystery bike.

You have to love the interweb, I saw this amazing special Dustbin Fairing special just a few miles from my home and was sadly unable to chase the rider down. Only a few days later during my evening of blog content searching I found these pictures of the same bike on the Pashnit "weird bike" forum thread. It was seen on a local Doc Wong instructional ride, but sadly the rider was not found.

So we await for the builder/owner of this amazing bike to stand up and take a bow....