„The sub-project investigates cooperative mobility practices of cycling. It contributes to a media-scientific concept of mobility against the background of the cooperative and sensory design of public spheres.“

Executive Summary

In view of anthropogenic climate change, the issue of mobility and thus also cycling has taken on an increasingly prominent role in public debates in recent years. The mobility sector causes almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. Of these, road transport is the largest emitter, which is largely attributable to passenger cars. In addition, war-related resource problems are increasing the pressure to develop alternatives to petrol-based mobility like cycling. This also causes controversies about forms of mobility, giving rise to issue publics.

Against this background, the subproject investigates how bicycle mobility is cooperatively generated. This finds expression in cooperatively constituted bicycle media that help shape publics in relation to sustainable mobility. The project is based on the working hypothesis that bicycle mobility cannot be reduced to mere movement from A to B. It is shaped by various (moving) image, data, and media practices in which sensory, bodily, and digital aesthetics become entangled and from which mobile publics of cycling emerge.

The objective of this project is to provide (1) a systematically designed empirical analysis of cooperative media practices of bicycle mobility and (2) a theoretical conceptualization of bicycle media as cooperative media of mobility. The project explores cooperative practices of bicycle mobility at two levels: (1) bicycle collectives and their cooperative media practices, and (2) audiovisual practices such as vlogs, films, and community apps.

We employ a multidimensional methodological approach that combines media-aesthetic analysis with participatory observations and interviews with selected bicycle groups (bicycle collectives). Furthermore, the project will create public science formats in order to build a cooperative research design that systematically integrates civil society initiatives into the research process. How (moving) images, apps, sensors, and body technologies work together to generate cycling and forms of a mobile public remains a gap in research that this project seeks to fill. The project will thereby make a systematic and conceptual contribution to bicycle mobility research by investigating the cooperative practices of generating bicycle mobility and the publics associated with it.