With an engineering background and antipathy for both traditional and academic art, Wang Luyan instead creates models and drawings for paradoxical machines. Wang foregrounds the intricate inner workings of common machinery, but alters them so that their internal forces cancel each other out.

This work is one of the 20 ‘post-reform’ bicycles that were included in Wang’s installation Bicycle (20) – 1996 in the second Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 1996. Wang sourced the bicycles in Brisbane, then ‘reformed’ them with a coat of red paint over every component, including the tyres, and added a second rear flywheel, which caused them to travel backwards when pedalled forwards. Visitors to the exhibition could ride the bicycles in the Sculpture Courtyard at QAG over the opening weekend, after which the contraptions were sold via silent auction and distributed to the winning bidders at the end of the exhibition.