Ghost Rider

Shaun Gladwell poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video and sculpture.

His recent works engage these concerns through forms of urban expression such as skateboarding, BMX bike-riding and breakdancing. Ghost Rider (2008) is a sculptural amalgam of mountain bicycles, sound and video. By inserting small speakers into the tubular bicycle frames, Gladwell transforms them into a functioning instrument and assigns the bikes a new, performing vocation. The bicycle ‘organ’ provides accompaniment to Gladwell’s video projection, which depicts bike-riding through Sydney streets at night. The rider performs stunts such as ‘wheelies’ and ‘ghosties’ (the latter referring to the bike gliding autonomously after the rider has dismounted while in motion).

Ghost Rider was presented on Cockatoo Island for the 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008).