PERFECT JOURNEY (AFTER JAMES LEE BYARS), 2018. Comissioned by Artists Aliance Inc. in collaboriation with Bike New York. In today’s world, everything we do has to be productive and performed at an increasingly aggressive pace. Do you remember the last time you did something that didn’t make any sense? What if we take a moment for ourselves to slow down, and try to see the city that we live in and its people (among them ourselves) from a different perspective? 60 years ago,  American artist James Lee Byars hitchhiked from his hometown of Detroit to New York City, hoping to meet the renowned painter Mark Rothko. Transfixed by the idea of perfection, and influenced by Zen and Noh rituals, Byars was a master of transforming abstract thought into action, shaping his persona and career into a continuous performance. Taking Byars’ practice as a point of departure, participants in the ride collectively attempted the futile act of drawing a circle in the great geometric grid that is Manhattan. Beginning and ending at 222 Bowery, the site of Rothko’s studio in 1957 when Byars arrived in NYC, riders senselessly “circled the square”—an utopic and liberating gesture that allowed the group (collectively and alone) to re-appropriated and re-defined the outline of the urban landscape. As with Byars works, a circle is not only a perfect geometrical shape that carries symbolic value, but represents what’s ephemeral and often intimate. At the start, each rider received a handmade piece of paper on which to reflect throughout the journey. Stopping four times at pre-determined locations, riders wrote, drew, and responded to their experiences. These contributions will be compiled into a small-edition book, with copies mailed to each participant—an enduring trace of a fleeting act.