Gym Class

Video

4:55

2015

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Gym Class deals with the digitalisation of the body and the use of technology to influence and regulate the physical body. Apps and other technological methods are used to digitise bodily processes and log them as measurable data. My avatar, who is the main subject of the piece, embodies anxiety and the quest for perfection often embarked on in online spaces and in customisable video game characters. Youtube workout videos, squats, and twerking feature as ways in which the body is attempted to be brought in line with beauty ideals, particularly pertaining to black women, and the beauty standards of Instagram fitness models. Bernadette Wegenstein’s text The Cosmetic Gaze states how humans view their own and others’ bodies as projects that are there to be improved upon; lying in wait of intervention, modification and technologies of enhancement.