FITNESS AT HIS FINEST
overprogramming equipments to reach the perfect body machine
This catalog is meant to show how over programming could force a space to shift into a different purpose. The use of the absurd make the claim even for evident and also critic how much non-sense some of these equipment could sometime be. The collages are using different types of pictures, some of them are photography while other are simply pictograms or even drawings. Mixing different types of images is way to present this equipment as something fictional but also not necessarily impossible.
Intro
Industrial revolution has led to production based societies, in which technical progress claim to improve the way we are living. Machines has become something central in this conception of our environment. In fact a machine is not only a technical object, it could also be seen as a concept where several pieces are working together in a coherent way. In this organisation, every part is essential and without one, the machine collapse. Following this, it is almost self-evident that the body would be seen as a machine in society. This concept has also been translated in urban conception where it was apply to cities. As the use of this concept is becoming more and more recurrent, it also seems like machines may not be adapted to solve everything. Using fitness as an example it will be develop how abuse of machines is leading to a non-sustainable environment.
Thinking the body as a machine leads to overprogramming
Gyms are an important place when talking about fitness, and one obviously already visit one or many of this places. This spaces got something particular and Roberta Sassatelli explain that a different world is created inside gyms. She uses the word « World » as another space and time organisation that completely ignore social roles when entering it. In fact she explain that different identities are created in order to only focus on the work of the body. For example each person working in the gym is not shaping his body the same way because nobody has the exact same needs. So for others users, you are define by the work that you put in your body (which is different than being define by the body in itself). These new identities inside the gym present ourselves as someone that is taking care of his body, but also as a respectful machine user.
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At this point the term machine can already be used. The body has become an object, it is dissociated from our real identity and when practicing, the goal is to improve the body. Improving does not necessarily means trying to achieve a performance, it could also be seen as repairing, fixing a machine that get worse and worse if we don’t maintain it in good conditions. The idea is great and we are supposed to keep our body fit for living, activating it is as important as eating, sleeping or hygiene.
Then going to the gym become something recurrent. If not already plan by the trainer, we schedule our time to practice, sometimes it becomes so specific that days are linked with parts of the body. On the Monday which is now called « Leg day », the session is extremely precise: to match the number of repetition that is fix, each second has a purpose which usually is getting some rest or practice. Then as soon as one part of the training is done, the user switch to another equipment.
The diversity is the main criteria for choosing a gym over another one and it is constantly improved to keep attracting users. So obviously, industries are trying to catch up demand which lead to new fitness equipment being developed every day. It would not really matters if all of this programming was only taking place inside fitness gyms because as explained earlier, the goal when entering fitness gym is to work on the body. Then having specific equipment is a must for every gym because it is what they are selling. The aim of this service answer anything that the user’s body needs.
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The issue is that people cannot have a different identity just for when they are going to do sports. Planning session at the gym induce that there is a special moment of the day/week/month dedicated to practice. Even if a lot of users that goes to gym are still taking that time to practice, some people can’t afford to spend recurrent time there. To rectify this, and by itself, home fitness started to emerge, if people can’t get to the gym, the gym will come to them. This identity that makes us think the body as a machine has been took out of the gym, as well as sophisticated equipment. Here again, Industries are again trying to produce every object that could fit at home, we can now turn any flat, house, room into a gym. There is now thousands of fitness equipment that are open to public, and almost everyone has already practice sport at home. But this massive and diversified production is not the only over programming that can be notice, we as users are also going in that way. We are planning sessions at home with this idea that we need to work on our body in a mechanical way. It can show that even unconsciously, we have taken out this recurrent programming idea that comes from thinking our body as a machine and brought it back inside our homes.
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Fitness is not the only element that is planned at home. Most of the domestic tasks are also working in a similar way. Schedules are made for most of this labour actions, tidy up, cleaning, cooking are all things that can’t be done at any time. Even if we get used to it because it the way it has been taught, it still is duties that we have to stick with. In a sense these requirements are exploiting ourselves without us to really notice it or changing it.
Over programming constrain space
Practicing fitness was one example but this point could also be made with several other subjects. Our living environment is being more and more over programmed, by things we do not directly control but also because of us. In fitness, thinking the body as a machine is not necessarily wrong, or bad, it is just incomplete. In fact it suppose that our body doesn’t have any interaction with other objects and machines.
Jean Baudrillard explain in « system of objects » that, according to him, advertising want us to believe that « The modern man doesn’t really need objects, he is just a technician that operate with them ». For him our environment is a world that is lived and so abstract of technical systems. What I understood from this is that objects become objects when they are in relation with at least one person. What would be a cup of tea without someone using it? To me this metaphor is really important and true for objects but also and probably even more for spaces.
Over programming a space is then thinking it as a machine in which more elements are added at all the time to make it work. By putting more and more of them, we are adding more and more functions. But it’s not possible to have them all physically coexist at the same time in the same space. New functions and needs are being created every day, it is not possible for a space to answer the desire of each user. By giving too much purpose to a space we also abstract ourselves from this space. As Baudrillard said, by doing so, we are putting ourselves at the technician’s place and all is left to do is choosing short term solutions that won’t work through time. Providing all possibilities of using a space is attracting, unfortunately it is utopian and only create an environment that is not really lived.
The production of space through social relations is something that is also recurrent in Henri Lefebvre’s thoughts. According to him, the social relations are present in space through personal interpretations. This theme is really rich and help to figure out the connectionn between the spaces and the society but it is also as a tool to apprehend the modern environment we live in. But too many times it is the only thing that is remembered and the trinity and conflictual approach of space are left behind.
The first step to fully understand the conflict that are present in space is the difference between what Lefebvre call the formal logic and the dialectic logic. The formal logic is the one that abstract things and is simply a flat conception from our mind. He uses as example the scientific thought. The other one, the dialectic is the logic of content that is lived and for him, there is no point to talk about human sciences and conclude to its impossibility. The formal logic, incomplete, can lead to a domination of space with power, especially when use at a large scale. Amélia Damiani has made a comment about it and more globally on Lefebvre’s book Critic of everyday life.
”There is a domination through logic [The formal one]. Indeed, it is programming the daily life. Neutralised spaces, hygienic and functional: as these roads for car traffic. The whole economic and politic rationality has an impact on daily life as it is lived”
This logic is something that we find in machines, theses technical systems totally abstract the living environment in order to work. Using them to produce a space is then more than incoherent. In architecture, the space is produce mainly by the people that interact with it, the role of the planner is only to induce some ideas with which users can have their own vision and feeling about the space. A well designed environment is not something that provide a clear answer to a current need. It is more about something that is open to evolve and be flexible through time.
This process of exchange, between someone and a machine, that can stay through time because of a capacity of change are what I define as a system. It is also a way to abstract the way our environment really is but not in a technical way. Systems are made of elements but also take in account the production of spaces through social relations. This also imply instability and the fact that everything in it can’t be understood, but still, it can be observe and worked with. And here is the difference with machines, trying to work out with the irrationality of needs, and not simply answering it in a technical way.
Conclusion
Over programming is often producing a labour that prevent us from properly appropriating the spaces. It is not needed to produce fitness as an absurd amount of equipment to get people fit themselves. Instead, thinking things as system would then be a benefit as it would be easier to appropriate us our environment. Spaces, objects, our body are all related to a social part that is often disregard because of formal logic thought, a vision in which what should be systems is seen as machines.
References :
BAUDRILLARD Jean, 1968, « Le Système des objets »
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DAMIANI Amélia Luísa, 1999, « As contradições do espaço : da lógica (formal) a (lógica) dialetica »
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LEFEBVRE Henri, 1947, « Logique formelle, logique dialectique »
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LEFABVRE Henri, 1947, « Critique de la vie quotidienne: Introduction »
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SASSATELLI Roberta, 1997, « Interaction and order beyond: A Field analysis of body culture within fitness gyms »
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Catalog:
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Rube Goldberg’s machines
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CARELMAN Jacques, 1969, Catalogue d’objets introuvables
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BRAND Stewart, 1968-1972, Whole Earth Catalog