Cycling in the Flattened City: Urban Assemblages and Digital Visual Research

Abstract

As urban assemblage theory emphasizes a conceptualization of the city as movement, constituted through the processual interactions between different human and non-human actors. This approach has been recognized as potentially valuable for the study of active bodies in urban environments ( Rick and Bustad 2020 ). Moreover, this approach also encourages the development and implementation of innovative methodologies aimed at conveying the complexity of urban life ( McFarlane and Anderson 2011 ). This article contributes to this approach through the use of digital visual research methods while experiencing a monthly cycling event in Baltimore, Maryland. In particular, we discuss how GoPro cameras might be utilized within the study of the embodied experience of urban cycling, and how this experience demonstrates the assemblage of human, machine, and urban environment. Following Sumartojo and Pink (2017) , we describe how GoPro recordings of active urban embodiment work to provide more than second-hand representations of others’ experiences, and instead can serve to collect and analyze ‘traces’ of the assemblages of urban physical cultures.