A bicycle journey through central Asia

Ten reportage

A book about this all

An interactive installation

A new way of sampling landscape and sound environments

Cycloscope is this all, but even more. An adventure of the soul, a quest for a new lifestyle.

We are Daniele Giannotta (1982, musicologist, cultural worker and sound artist) and Elena Stefanin (1984, Graduated in Culture and Human Rights), and our project is just a respectful exploration of Central Asia by bicycle for documentary purposes .

The idea of Cycloscope is that of a "cycle of cycles" of which the one presented here is only the first of a hopefully long series. A journey by bike from theDanube’s delta through Central Asia in search of images, sounds and words. A series of reportages about contradictions and conflicts, traditions and cultural evolution, natural wonders and environmental risks of the former Soviet republics.

We think that the documentation is the higher purpose that a traveler might aim: to gather knowledge and information, that shared, could simplify and at the same time deepen the experience of the next traveler .

In contrast to non-human-powered transport (trains, planes, cars...) the bike puts the traveler in close contact with the road, the landscape and the people . When cycling is not the destination that matters, but the journey itself.

A way to travel slower, closer to ancient rhythms, a kind of neo-nomadism which, we hope, will help us to empathize with the authentic nomadic culture of Central Asia, or at least with what's left.

Travelling by bicycle will allow us to fully explore rural and remote areas in a path through the ancestral territories of humanity, hunting for unknown or forgotten treasures.