Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Royal College of Art
Scooterkit - Design Product
Wilson has explored human-powered mobility since building his own bikes at 15, creating several innovations in vehicle typology. His previous research with the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design included a tilting tricycle for disabled children that could be swiftly adapted to different needs and abilities, still a Design Council Web resource a decade later (http://www.designcouncil.info/inclusivedesignresource/benwilson/methodology.html) and cited as exemplary in Preiser and Smith, Universal Design Handbook 2nd edn. (2010). In addition to design and engineering research for production, Wilson creates innovative one-off cycles and related mobility devices to represent ideas and promote pedal-power.
Scooterkit extends Wilson’s own design by engaging teenagers through Design Camps, funded by three London boroughs as part of the Design Technology curriculum to offer an authentic experience of being a designer/maker. The work was exhibited at the Aram Gallery in 2010 and gained a Helen Hamlyn Alumni Design Award.
Related work includes Seebikesaw (2011) with Brooks England (one of the world's oldest bicycle component manufacturers), a bike-seesaw for both adults and children exhibited as part of ‘100% Design London’. Working with Gavin Turk, Wilson also created 4H (2011): four unicycles joined by an H-frame engaging four riders in a collaborative biking experience. Highlighting the need for sustainable and pleasurable ways to travel, it was commissioned as part of Bicycle Wheel, a series of London artists’ commissions intended to raise environmental debate and encourage cycling through art.
Wilson’s Pocket Rocket 2 appeared in the ‘Power of Making’ exhibition (2011–12) at the V&A Museum, as did his Precious Bicycle, a low-rider encrusted with 110,000 Swarovski crystals, reconceptualising the bicycle as charismatic object. Wilson has advised Sir Clive Sinclair over many years, including on the Sinclair X-1 electric power-assisted street bike (2010) and A-bike (2006, in production now).
