Werker 9 — Radical Sports Centre

Inspired both by the use of sports as part of the socialist program to educate the masses and by the mural newspapers that were published at that time, this project will bring the form of a wall newspaper one step further. The wall newspaper will present all the projects of the Radical Sport Centre by projecting them into the future, questioning the media and the capacity of imagination to generate reality and utopia.

What was the use of sports in the British Empire? What are its traces nowadays? How did English sports interact with local traditions from the colonies? All these questions are raised in a research based project that looks at the rituals performed by New-Zealand Rugby teams before every match. The project is materialised into a documentation corner and a lecture.

At the art academy the students exercise every day to learn how to improve performance as cultural workers after the academy. Looking at the education that is delivered at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, what kind of sportswear would be fitting best the movements that are being rehearsed daily in a school of cognitive labour?

The body turned into an image, a sculpture, an ideal. The motivation that allows bodybuilders to reach their dream its definitely fascinating. The bio-political program bodybuilders submit their bodies to is a very strict one with no concessions to mondaine pleasures. Bodybuilders have a self-made regime of exercise, diet, competition and loads of motivation! In large scale politics, motivation is used to transform individual bodies into a mass with a greater potential for change. A sound scape focusing on how motivation is often expressed through sound and voice will deal with these issues.

Why all that sweat? Sports are just another business dominated by multinational companies… Sport is definitely a waste of energy. Fuck Sports! By looking at imagery of bodies pushing themselves to the limits the only word that comes to our mind is ‚alienation'. In capitalist society sports are just as stressing as any other kind of work. The sport itself is not the goal, the only goal is to win. Even though we are aware of the absurdity and inhumanity of global capitalism, what do we have to offer as an alternative? Is there something more enlightening to propose than the nihilist attitude of contemplating negation?

Are animals tools? Is a bullfight violating animal rights or does it have cultural values that we should protect? What is the history of the use of animals in sports? What about the mythological animals / human hybrids? How can animals be part of our Radical Sports Centre? The Gym Goat becomes the starting point of a performative lecture about the historical, mytological and contemporary use of animals in sports.

Both the spectator of sports and the practitioner of video games have a strong relationship to sports. Are the roles they play merely passive? Do the last technological developments in video gaming involve the body and mind of the players on another level? Does that generate another physical notion of passivity? A multi-screen video installation addresses the expanded notion of spectatorship and the virtual sports practitioner.

Can our domestic activities be considered an everyday life sport? Until what extend are family models predefined by society, tradition or economy? What does it mean to live together? Are freelancers that work at home also domestic workers? A Domestic Tetrathlon poses all these questions in a meaningful and fun parcours of home-games.

Working-class counciousness, underground, group-behavior, resistance against the dominant ideology… What are the aesthetic elements that generate and unify a group? Which aspects of everyday life become the icons of an underground movement? Graffiti, Badges, Flags, Scarfs, Anthems… The Supporter group has been using these elements to create a fictive group of supporters that stands for the political agenda of the Radical Sports Centre and at the same time questions group-behavior, its codes and its construction.

Why does society criminalize doping when both in sports and in other fields of work, optimal performance and high productivity is always required from us? Isn't the individual that is ready to sacrifice even his health for the nation's pride, the family or business the 'real hero'? Let's look at the function of doping in our society frontally and against hypocrisy and fake moralistic approaches.