Josh Widera researches urban communication and information infrastructure through the figure of the bicycle messenger. Bike messengers are both a symbol and a victim of the networked city, both resisting and confirming to capitalist logics of consumption and distribution, both lethally endangered by and profiting from urban (car-centered) infrastructure. Widera’s research explores what those realities and phenomenologies can teach us about culture, society, and identity in our global, digitizing, networked cities in general, and Los Angeles in particular.
Originally from Germany, Widera graduated from the University of Glasgow with a joint honours degree in politics and theatre studies and from the California Institute of the Arts with an MA in aesthetics and politics. His work has been supported by the Fulbright Commission, the ERP scholarship, and the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. He is currently finishing a small book on bicycle messenger culture, set to be published in 2021 with the Verlag für Handbücher.