The original Dream Bike concept started as a small epiphany in 2005 after watching an episode of The Simpsons where Homer’s rich brother asks him to build his dream car. Inspired by Homer’s childlike interpretation of a car; with bubble dome, ‘La Cucaracha’ horn and everything a Homer could dream of, they translated the ‘dream car’ concept into a clean and conscious one: the dream bike. In 2006 Abner Preis and Claudius Gebele teamed up to invite over 200 international artists and bike lovers to think about their own vision of the dreamiest of bikes and Me Bike Concepts was born.
During the successful Dream Bike Festival in 2006, the Me Bike Festival in 2007 and the Autoloze Zondag 2007 they started exploring their dream bikes by exposing real bikes, paintings, small handcrafted works and big installations by artists from all around. As time passed the Me Bike Project extended the presentation of bike-related-art by integrating entertaining factors to it. The events involve BMX ramp actions, flat ground competitions, bike workshops, skateboard and break-dance elements, as well as musical performances, performance art, and much more.
This year’s event at the Mediamatic in Amsterdam started off with an opening ceremony on Friday, where the teams were presented and the materials exposed. Minivilla and Nina Boas performed, while Lil’ Shy and Ovni provided the complimentary soundtrack for the celebratory drinks.
The next morning the teams had to be back at 11 a.m. to start building their bikes. Hours of work were put into crazy fun ideas. Even more hours were put into making the bikes ride-able. After some blood, sweat and maybe a little tear the bikes were sent off to the big bike race, which determined the winners:
Best of Show: The Lady Bike
Most Creative: The Golden Burka
Worst of Show: The Dragon Bike
I always admired the creativity and fun that revolves around Me Bike events. It’s a chance for grown up artists and bike lover to play, while the guests get amused and inspired to pimp their bikes not so much a la MTV, but DIY. While last year’s events, like the Me Bike Festival at Paradiso, evolved more around BMX actions and artists painting, this year’s event was all about the bikes. So it is cool, all right, but despite their ‘cool clean conscious’ concept statement and the fact that it is about bikes there is little that reminds me of the clean consciousness of dream bikes. Since bikes are the most used mode of transport in Amsterdam people don’t need a reminder to bike more. But outside Holland Me Bike could have a green impact and bring the cool back into conscious.
pictures by Attilio Branaccio
