\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this immersive space, the duo create a hybrid video, painting, and sculptural environment that tells the story of a journalist, Charli, who is pursuing what could be a career-defining reportage on a FitWatch\u2014a kind of bio-tracking smartwatch<\/a>\u2014that gets its users to achieve their goals no matter the cost. Aasgaard and Armstrong take us into The Factory<\/a>, the gym in which the tale takes place, to consider ideas of labor, the body, and how we operate within contemporary capitalist dynamics. The artists most effectively introduce the project on their site<\/a> themselves by saying: \u2018Welcome to The Factory, where scandals sweat, and every step on the treadmill takes you closer to the edge.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Factory Fitness Studio<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Upon entering the former optician\u2019s shop in Dortmund, it\u2019s difficult to quite make out what has been set in motion, as there are a whirl of figures and characters abound. Most noticeable within this scene are the painted figures of Transformers, the robots from the massively successful franchise, rendered in primary colors and luxe chromes, taking selfies with actual smartphones that are zipped up in clear baggies and embedded in cutouts within the paintings. It\u2019s unfit, though, to call these paintings. They are more akin to the backdrops or scenics found setting the scene of a play than something found on a gallery wall. When looking closely at each panel\u2014angled and arranged to create the artists\u2019 medieval-gym-turned-surveillance center\u2014one can see that the paintings are created over photos of a fairly mundane Berlin during the day.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The inside of this \u2018gym\u2019 was derived from a hodgepodge of temporally disparate paintings that range from Scenes from the Life of Saint Bertin and the Annunciation to Mary with prophets and evangelists (Simon Marmion, 1459), The Annunciation (Piero del Pollaiuolo, 1480), to Woman at a Window (Caspar David Friedrich, 1822). In this way, they evoke a kind of aesthetic and temporal weirdness that points to the strange temporal setting of contemporary Europe, with its trains and metros that zip underneath 16th-century castles, startups and luxury brands occupying offices in galleria buildings. In all these atemporal elements, they begin to nudge at the strangeness of contemporary life and its dredges of the past that still appear.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Inflatable Bodies vs. Chrome Transformers<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Just as they greeted visitors into the space, more of the inflatable sculptures whip around the interior of the installation. The duo have referenced Henry Moore\u2019s works as the core inspiration behind their vaguely human forms. Positioned above large, very visible fans, their bodies expand and contract, filling their neutral-colored forms. They themselves are \u2018working out,\u2019 not so dissimilar to how one\u2019s muscles would tense and relax or how their spine would curl while doing reps at a gym. With these creatures, so flaccid and flexible in front of the rigid, shining Transformers, they call into question the idea of the body. What does it mean to occupy a humanoid form? And what are the responsibilities that one has to take care of it, track it, and conceive of something that\u2019s always in flux?<\/p>\n![\"optician\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/uncanny-shifts-designboom-08.jpg\")
installation view from Uncanny Shifts, Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard & Zayne Armstrong, The Factory, 2026 | all images by Henning Rogge \u00a9 Urbane K\u00fcnste Ruhr unless stated otherwise<\/p>\n![\"optician\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/uncanny-shifts-designboom-10.jpg\")
the inside of this \u2018gym\u2019 was derived from a hodgepodge of temporally disparate paintings referenced by the artists<\/p>\n![\"optician\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/uncanny-shifts-designboom-09.jpg\")
just as they greeted visitors into the space, more of the inflatable sculptures whip around the interior of the installation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Factory Art Installation at Uncanny Shifts \u00a0 At Uncanny Shifts, an exhibition by Urbane K\u00fcnste Ruhr set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2901,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,1682,215,464643],"class_list":["post-901305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architecture-in-germany","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibition-design","tag-smartwatches","tag-spectator-and-spectacle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}