Aerobics

Titre / Title : Aerobics

Auteurs / Authors : Quaymberley Dudley

Participants : Chrisantha Chetty, Quaymberley Dudley, Gina Kraft, Camelia Zaoudi, Helaine Toulet Zurcher

Lieu / Place : Citadel

Date(s) : 8 October 2013

Durée (processus jusqu’à présentation ou à préciser / Duration (process until presentation or to be specified) : Process work, plan to do this every day

Description (medium, genre, concept, questions, critics…) : Performance

We decided as a group to workout together in the park. It was not planned to be made into a project, we just wanted to work off the baguettes and croissants that we had for breakfast everyday. We each directed the group with various exercises that we knew from our own workout routines such as dance, ballet, cybertronics, trance-dance, belly-dancing, yoga, Pilates, step and general Hi-Lo aerobics. Three group members wore a red spandex outfit. The videos generated have a strange dynamic where the two group members that are not in spandex stand out but in the real-time performance the red spandex members attract the most attention.

My own Fine Art practice relates to instructions and how they construct. I have been working with magazine covers, exercise videos and how-to guides because I am interested in how they instruct readers on how to act and who to be. I am trying to connect the aerobics project to my practice. I felt a clear connection to instructions when it was my turn to direct the group about what exercise move to do next.

What we found most stimulating was the spontaneity that the workouts brought out in each of us. This is still process work and we are interested to see what can come from it. There are some interesting themes and links to the alien, borders, undressing, politics and vulnerability that we want to explore. What works best is when we do not overplan or overthink what we are doing.