Bodybuilding

Bodybuilding is an interactive installation which ironically stages the relation between the body, technology, and language. The user is active in a bodybuilding machine. Moving the weights, he or she affects the text movement on the screen in front of him or her. The text consists of erotic fragments stored in a database and selected randomly according to the user’s action. Here, the body, being a consuming and styling object of the Techno-culture, serves—paradoxically in full action—for the imaginative access to the verbally mediated erotic world, where the body simultaneously is a central theme. However, during the reading process, the user’s hands have to remain above the blankets—i.e., on the machine. Beyond, the textual dialog simultaneously functions as a commentary on the user’s situation in the machine.

Frank Fietzek

was born in Kiel, Germany, in 1960. Living in Berlin, he is a media artist and has been working as a project director at the Labor für elektronische Medien (LEM) in Hamburg and as a resident professor in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Weimar, and Berlin. Since 1983 his work has been shown in numerous personal and group exhibitions including “Im Buchstabenfeld,” neue galerie graz 2001; “Operational Tests,” E-Werk, Freiburg; “artgenda,” Börse und Kunsthaus Hamburg 2002. Frank Fietzek has received several awards, among others from the “Ars Electronica” (Honorable Mention 1999, 2001).

> www.f-fietzek.de


	Bodybuilding Bodybuilding is an interactive installation which ironically stages the relation between the body, technology, and language. The user is active in a bodybuilding machine. Moving the weights, he or she affects the text movement on the screen in front of him or her. The text consists of erotic fragments stored in a database and selected randomly according to the user’s action. Here, the body, being a consuming and styling object of the Techno-culture, serves—paradoxically in full action—for the imaginative access to the verbally mediated erotic world, where the body simultaneously is a central theme. However, during the reading process, the user’s hands have to remain above the blankets—i.e., on the machine. Beyond, the textual dialog simultaneously functions as a commentary on the user’s situation in the machine. Frank Fietzek was born in Kiel, Germany, in 1960. Living in Berlin, he is a media artist and has been working as a project director at the Labor für elektronische Medien (LEM) in Hamburg and as a resident professor in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Weimar, and Berlin. Since 1983 his work has been shown in numerous personal and group exhibitions including “Im Buchstabenfeld,” neue galerie graz 2001; “Operational Tests,” E-Werk, Freiburg; “artgenda,” Börse und Kunsthaus Hamburg 2002. Frank Fietzek has received several awards, among others from the “Ars Electronica” (Honorable Mention 1999, 2001). > www.f-fietzek.de