A project that holds space for collective listening, field recording, sonic mapping, reflection, and the co‑creation of a soundscape of Brussels as experienced from the saddle of a bicycle. Through rides and collective recording sessions (developed with various cycling associations and cultural centres) the project will weave together practices of listening, exchange, storytelling, and soundscape creation. It will generate agreed forms of restitution, including a sonic map, a shared soundscape, and a number of performances.
The bicycle has always been a faithful companion. From my first BMX as a child, to race bikes in my twenties, and later the discovery of bikepacking, my relationship with cycling shifted from a performance-driven practice to a more political and mindful one.
My bike became my primary mode of transport, from daily commutes to holidays. During the pandemic, it turned into a true instrument of freedom, letting me cross borders just to be with the person I love.
In Brussels, I began volunteering as a bike mechanic and trainer for newcomers. I came to embrace the bicycle’s social potential and its pollution-free, silent, human‑scaled vision of mobility—an invitation to rethink how we inhabit and share public space.
Gradually, cycling evolved from a means of moving through the city into a way of experiencing reality itself: while pedalling, I realized that cyclists inhabit a peculiar sonic condition. This auditory experience is shaped by relative speed, proximity to cars, and the wider distances covered compared to walking. The bicycle becomes a technological mediator—an instrument for shaping together a sonic cartography, transforming the journey into an opportunity for ecological, critical, and collective listening.
This project brings together people who experience Brussels by bikes, for commuting, for fun, socially or alone. Those who cycle regardless of weather or problematic infrastructures.
Together, we will collectively listen to our city, exchange, record, map, and transform the city’s soundscape into a shared sonic cartography. Finally, we will make sound art with it together.