[ a kit of these some parts] x budget gym ]

[ a kit of these some parts ] x budget gym ] is a temporary architecture in-service of the activity: in this case, the activity of working out.  Co-opting the architectural formulas of rentable event-tents or trade show booths, where poles, panels, tension straps, and tarps complete otherwise generic structural frames, the project intertwines custom elements with generic ones and images with budget materials to provide a set of parts that come together to form a cohesive environment.

This architecture turns to material diversion tactics from diy queer cultural production, which are often low-budget material assemblies re-aestheticized and reassembled to serve future uses. Here, repainting the same 2x4 over and over is part queer approach to resource diversion and part environmental tactic. Materiality, in this context becomes the perpetual reimagining our physical world through surface manipulation, reassembly, and aesthetic layering in order to extend an object’s lifespan.

The project proposes assembly, rather than construction, refinish rather than remake, as ways of creating a rentable and reusable architectural kit that considers its own futurity. The architecture is a series of components that come together through provisional assembly: trough tension straps and bolts. Impermanently tied together, objects to objects and objects to place. Only existing together for the duration of the program, these strappy, interim methods are equal parts kink, equal parts sensible architecting. The kit includes: a structural steel system, foam padding, hold downs, tape, ratchet straps, shims, dunnage bags, sandbags and vacuum-formed panels. Varying in size and use, they blur the lines between scenographic backdrops, material prototypes, props and prosthetics. Through such mechanisms of assembly, the project acknowledges the fast metabolism of aesthetics and the excessive production of sheer stuff created by the accelerated loop between culture and commodity.

[ a kit of these some parts ] includes several component parts. In its iteration as [ x budget gym ], the project will serve as a meeting point for exercise-based activities, such as weight-lifting, trainer-led workouts and a hydration station and meet up point for hiking and biking groups. The public is also invited to use the gym for personal fitness at any time by emailing [email protected] for an appointment. Additional programs and performances are forthcoming. Project is complete with a [ x video game ] where one can customize a future version of the project by inhabiting the catalog of parts. 

Image courtesy of stock-a-studio, 2019
日時
2019.10.19 - 2020.1.05
場所
Materials & Applications
1313 Sunset Blvd
90026 Los Angeles, アメリカ
主催
Materials & Applications
リンク
M&A
someparts

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