元川匠Takumi Motokawa

Pedalling → Sound and video

Velophone

Four exercise bikes, one instrument. Whoever climbs on becomes part of the band.

Year
2026
Type
Interactive sound and video installation
Exhibition
Echo of Someone (誰かのやまびこ展), curated by Kyotetsu Horikawa
Venue
Small Studio Lobby Exhibition Room, Naha Cultural Arts Theater NAHArT, Okinawa
Dates
10 Oct – 3 Nov 2026
Velophone at NAHArT: four exercise bikes, one of them a small yellow children’s bike, gathered in a dark room before a projected black-and-white video-synth image, seen through an arched doorway.
Velophone in Echo of Someone, NAHArT, Okinawa, 2026Photo: Tomohiro Hanada

Ride it here

A sketch of the piece for your screen. Tap the bikes: bike 1 plays a pad, bike 2 the bass, bike 3 free percussion and bike 4 a glockenspiel melody. Ride together and they become one piece.

About the work

At the gym, most of us exercise alone, earbuds in. Velophone asks what would happen if the gym became a place to jam.

The work joins the pleasure of moving to the pleasure of making music. Each exercise bike is an instrument: start pedalling and it begins to sound, shifting and morphing as you speed up or slow down. Ride alone, with friends or family, or with complete strangers. Every rider adds to the music, and the projected image responds to everyone pedalling together.

Motorcycle handlebar switches let riders transform the sound completely, and a set of dance-mat hopscotch squares serves as the warm-up. There are no wrong notes here: the whole room is a playground.

Signal path

From legs to loudspeakers

  1. →RidersFour bikes, four voicesEach bike has its own Arduino Leonardo reading its cadence. Handlebar switches add a second layer of control.
  2. →BrainBikeBrainAn ESP32-S3 on its own Wi-Fi turns the four cadences into CV, gates and MIDI, in time with Ableton Live.
  3. →VoicesFour voices and a video synthIn Ableton Live: a pad, a bass that opens up with speed, free percussion, and a generative glockenspiel melody on the kids’ bike, in the Ryukyu scale for this showing. The image comes from a Lumatic Visual Devices Rorschach video synthesiser.
  4. RoomSound and imageA small mixer into two speakers, and the Rorschach’s image thrown across the wall by a projector.

Materials

  • Exercise bikes
  • Motorcycle handlebar switches
  • Microcontrollers (Arduino, ESP32)
  • PlayStation dance mats
  • Synthesisers
  • Video synthesiser (Lumatic Visual Devices Rorschach)
  • Ableton Live
  • Computer
  • Audio interface
  • Speakers

Next showing

Remote riders

Riders in two places pedalling the same piece at once, with people at home joining from their phones. In development for the next showing.

Credits

Concept, sound, hardware and software: Takumi Motokawa. Exhibition: Echo of Someone, curated by Kyotetsu Horikawa, at Naha Cultural Arts Theater NAHArT. Photography: Tomohiro Hanada.