In this presentation I discuss the intersection of cycling and media. Contrary to the assumption that cycling is an unmediated practice, many media and aesthetic practices can be observed around cycling. Cycling culture ranges from practices of repairing to collective processes, training and geo media apps as well as image media. I would like to use visual media to describe how media affects cycling and vice versa: which practices co-emerge with practices of mobility. I will focus especially on audiovisual approaches. Based on vlogs of women cyclists, the importance of media practices for cycling culture and as potential empowerment will be discussed. Using the practices of cycling and bicycle vlogs, I will combine aesthetic and practical theoretical concepts: Thus I propose to consider infrastructures, images and collective processes as intertwined in the production of cycling.

Julia Bee, Dr. phil, is Junior Professor for image theory at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Currently she is Mercator fellow at the CRC Media of Cooperation at the University of Siegen. Her fields of work are: Visual anthropology and experimental visual processes, gender and media, philosophies of perception and experience, bicycle media. Current publications: Diffraktion – Individuation – Spekulation. Zur Methodendebatte in den Medienwissenschaften“, in: Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 22, 2020, with Jennifer Eickelmann und Kat Köppert, „Filmische Trans/Individuationen, Ansprache, Affekte und die Konstitution von feministischen Kollektiven in Long Story Short und Yours in Sisterhood, in: nachdemfilm 17, 2019; Gefüge des Zuschauens. Begehren, Macht und Differenz in Film- und Fernsehwahrnehmung, Bielefeld 2018.