There is a moment in every city when a public sculpture stops being a sculpture and becomes a question mark and an improvised stage.
Down by the harbour in Aarhus there are giant red letters spelling Aarhus, big enough to sit inside, scrawled with graffiti, waiting for the wind. Most people walk past them. Some take a photo. Denise Wiersma climbed into the U, turned herself upside down, put her sneakers in the sky, and looked at me with the calm face of a woman who has made a terrible decision on purpose.
“Are you stuck?” I asked. “Do you need help? Should we call the cops?”
That was the beginning of Playing with Aarhus.
WHAT THE SHOW IS
Playing with Aarhus is a spontaneous comedy series written and performed by the two of us. There is no script in the traditional sense. We arrive somewhere in the city, we find a shape, an object, a staircase, a letter, and we play. One of us commits to a ridiculous situation. The other one tries, very seriously, to solve it. The city becomes our stage set and our co-star.
The first season arc is called HELP! Denise Is Stuck in Aarhus.
Episode 1, “Upside Down in the U”: Denise is folded into a giant letter U, legs in the air. I try to talk her out. I count to three. I threaten to call the police. Nothing works.
Episode 2, “Bottoms Up”: Progress, of a kind. Her bottom is now up. Unfortunately, her head is now down. I push from every angle known
to physics. She is still stuck.
Episode 3, “From U to S”: Somehow, and nobody can explain how, she has escaped the U and is now entangled in an S. I call out to the ladies and gentlemen of Aarhus for help. Nobody comes. I offer coffee through a very long straw.
It is silly. It is meant to be silly. Play is one of the last things adults are allowed to do in public without a reason, and we think that is worth protecting.
WHY WE FILM IT THIS WAY
Every episode is filmed hands-free through Ray-Ban Meta glasses, from my point of view. That choice is not a gimmick. It is the art project.
Playing with Aarhus is part of my ongoing practice of consent-first wearable filmmaking. Camera glasses are arriving in our streets whether we invite them or not, and the public conversation about them is mostly about fear: hidden recording, faces captured without permission, strangers turned into content. Those fears are justified. A small recording light is not consent.
So we work the other way around. The people in front of the lens chose to be there. Denise is my co-writer and co-star, not a subject. Passers-by who did not say yes are blurred or left out. Filming and publishing are two separate yeses. Footage is reviewed before it goes live. And the joke is never on a stranger. The only people in on the joke are the people who agreed to be in it.
Denise brings something essential to this. She is a performer who has danced, played music and worked in circus and theatre since 2007, and she is openly sceptical of AI and smart glasses. Her motto is “Dancing as an act of resistance, together against the screen era.” That tension is part of the work. We are using the technology of the screen era to make something that is about bodies, presence and two people laughing in the wind on a grey October afternoon in Aarhus.
THE FOUR S’S
Like everything I make as FatbikeHero, the series follows four principles:
• Spontaneous. We do not rehearse the city. We meet it.
• Self-Funded. No sponsors, no brand deals. The glasses are not sponsored.
• Sovereign. We own our story, our faces and our choices.
• Smiles. If it does not make someone smile, it does not go out.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The first three episodes are out now on Instagram, @fatbikehero and @denisewiersma. Each one is short, subtitled and built to be watched in order. Will Denise ever escape? We honestly do not know yet. That is the point of spontaneous work. The city decides.
If you are in Aarhus and you see a woman stuck in a letter and a man in a studded white helmet trying very hard to help her, you are welcome to say hello. And if you would like to be in an episode, ask us. We will only film you if you say yes.
Watch the episodes, share them with someone who needs a laugh, and subscribe here to follow the season and the thinking behind it.
FatbikeHero and Denise Wiersma
Aarhus, November 2026
Playing with Aarhus is a consent-first wearable filmmaking art project. Written and starring FatbikeHero and Denise Wiersma. Filmed on Ray-Ban Meta glasses (not sponsored).