The Old Times

The VICTORIAN Smart Bike – The Presentation

I have 100s – or at least 10s – of books and magazines about cycling lying around at home. Not to mention the “N+1” ideal quantity of bicycles themselves. Indeed, this project, has even encouraged me to invest in my first ever e-bike which is winging its way through the Straits of Hormuz as we speak (or not as the case may be). My research comes from all of this and from my mind as well as Google and – as mentioned in my last post Notebook LM which I prefer to think of as Augmented Intelligence (AI) rather than Artificial Intelligence (AI). I have also used Claude AI and Adobe Firefly for this project to create images for this presentation, improve my visuals and CapCut Video Studio for the videos included with this presentation.

Apologies because at 17 minutes this presentation is still longer than might have been perfect but I have got to the stage where I can’t think what else to cut out to ensure that the story of this speculative design is told in a way which means it can be understood by someone who is only seeing the presentation without any of the background information.

I did not proceed to develop the website as I think I may already have exceeded the desired scope of the project but the intention was to develop this (quite how, I am not entirely certain!) into the user guide for the 2085 person who would be riding the bike. It can be found here:

https://thevictoriansmartbike.netlify.app

Here is a list of the sources, influences, and creative credits that shaped the speculative design of ‘THE VICTORIAN’ Smart Bike project, drawing directly from the provided materials.

Historical & Cultural Sources

• Victorian Cycling History: Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy, and articles like “The Woman and the Bicycle” from Munsey’s Magazine (1896), which highlight the bicycle’s role in women’s liberation.
• Victorian Manuals & Records: The Cyclist’s Companion: A Victorian Guide to the Velocipede, alongside original UK Victorian Patent Office Records and documentation from the Great Exhibition of 1851.
• Historical Figures: Annie Londonderry, the first woman to cycle around the world, used as an icon for feminist cycling heritage.
• The Victoria and Albert Museum
• The Science Museum

Cycling Culture & Contemporary Contexts

• Tadej Pogačar: The professional cyclist and multiple Tour de France winner serves as a massive inspiration and is playfully integrated as a “holographic companion” and virtual tactical advisor.
• Cycling Literature & Tropes: The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold by Tim Moore, and Bike Snob by BikeSnobNYC. The project also plays on contemporary cycling tropes like MAMILs (Middle-Aged Men In Lycra), Strava social media culture, and cargo-bike parenting.
• Advocacy & Urban Planning: Concepts from 15-minute city designs, the League of American Bicyclists, and the European Cyclists’ Federation.

Design, Aesthetics & Speculative Precedents

• Speculative Design & Fiction: “Speculative Everything” and “The Manual” by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby heavily influenced the “design fiction” approach of the project. Additional influences include Superflux Design Studio and ScanLab Projects.
• Aesthetic Movements: The visual language pulls from Steampunk/Victorian Futurism, Art Nouveau (1890s-1910s), and Victorian scientific illustrations (like those of Ernst Haeckel).

Philosophical & Cultural Theory

• Critiques of Tech & Capitalism: Shoshana Zuboff’s critique of Surveillance Capitalism and David Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules inspired the satirical “moral measurement” and bureaucratic elements.
• Social Life & Ecology: The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, and Ivan Illich’s Energy and Equity (1974), which critiques automobility. Pine & Gilmore’s Experience Economy influenced the “inhabitation” social network features.
• Climate Futures: The Solarpunk movement, “Degrowth Theory,” and ecosystem restoration models inspired the optimistic 2085 post-car setting.

Literary Influences

• Victorian & Sci-Fi: H.G. Wells (The Time Machine) and Jules Verne heavily influenced the temporal elements. Time-layering was also inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Aesthetics & Absurdity: Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic philosophy (“One should always be a little improbable”) serves as the basis for the “Wilde Approval” AI feature. Absurdist and imaginative world-building was drawn from Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities), Jorge Luis Borges (The Library of Babel), Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett.
• Television programmes: Doctor Who, Buck Rodgers in the 21st Century

Technology & Materials Science

• Emerging Technologies: Quantum computing, transparent solar cells, piezoelectric kinetic energy harvesting, and holographic projection.
• Material Innovation: Real-world research from the MIT Self-Assembly Lab (programmable materials), biomimicry, smart pressure-sensing fabrics, and mycelium-based (mushroom) leather directly inspired the bike’s “impossible” materials.
• Inclusive Design: Universal Design Principles and Assistive Technology Research inspired the bike’s “Family Constellation Module” and adaptive capabilities.

Digital Tools & Creation Credits

To bring this speculative manual and pitch to life, the following digital media and AI tools were utilized:

• AI Image Generation: Adobe Firefly (primary tool for product concept art), Canva AI, Google Gemini, and Ideogram.
• AI Video Generation: CapCut, Runway Gen-4, Luma Dream Machine, Pika 2.2, and Pollo.ai.
• Infographics & Layout: Canva and Adobe Express.
• Audio & Voiceover: ElevenLabs (used to synthesize the Victorian Butler AI voice), Audacity, and Acast.
• Web Hosting & Archives: The manual website was hosted via Netlify (and explored through GitHub). Archival imagery was sourced from Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress.

Academic Course References

The project directly responds to teachings from the Thinking Digital (MOD007295) module, led by Emily Godden, referencing course discussions on:

• Meme Culture (relying on texts like the Critical Meme Reader).
• Hauntology & Residual Media (referencing Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life and Charles R. Acland’s Residual Media).
• Algorithmic Bias & Oppression (drawing heavily from Safiya Umoja Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression).
• Internet Sociology (incorporating Kenneth Goldsmith’s Wasting Time on the Internet).