Review: The House Gymnastics Book
Houses mean different things to different people. To modernists, they are bold new machines for living in, while to hobos they are but a wonderful, distant dream. To House Gym founders James Ford and Spencer Harrison, the home is a space to explore and play about in: banisters are monkey bars, your living room is a sandpit, and this analogy has been over-extended, but you get the point.
House Gymnastics , the print bible for those interested in a fast growing international community, was recently published, bringing moves such as Upper Door Frame Grab and One-Handed Starfish to a whole new audience.
The basic premise of House Gymnastics is devastatingly simple: strike poses by balancing on whatever is available to you in your home. There's no particular purpose to the whole affair, other than your own amusement (and, probably, to impress girls, but this is just supposition). The book provides a wealth of suggested moves you can "bust" - it also contains a glossary of HG terms - all accompanied by stylish line drawings of how these moves should look if "busted" correctly. The diagrams give the book the feel of a 70s science textbook, and the dry, ambiguously ironic text adds to the kitsch aesthetic. While it seems Harrison and Ford take the performance of House Gym quite seriously, their presentation of it is entertainingly close to a camp comic strip detailing the domestic arrangements of gold medal Romanian gymnasts. It's quite charming, a stereotypically British mixture of straight faces and lunacy. It's not all fun and games, though, as "Personal injury is a likely event" when cocking about in your domestic environment, so be warned.
Although House Gymnastics was invented after a particularly convoluted attempt to put up a blind, it has grown, via the deadpan website, into something of a trend. It's even worked it's way round to notorious culturephobes such as FHM and at least one economics student I know of. This conjures up a lovely image of houses across the country celebrating as someone successfully executes a Shelf Pirouette for the first time, or commiserating when someone stacks an xXx onto their head. The only thing that stops me wholeheartedly endorsing this book as a tool of Bill and Ted-like world peace is that either Harrison or Ford (I forget which) came to a party at my house, and, in demonstrating some moves to pissed up revellers, knocked chunks out of my stairwell wall, and my damage deposit. Change the title to Someone Else's House Gymnastics, and I'll reconsider my all-important endorsement.
Houses mean different things to different people. To modernists, they are bold new machines for living in, while to hobos they are but a wonderful, distant dream. To House Gym founders James Ford and Spencer Harrison, the home is a space to explore and play about in: banisters are monkey bars, your living room is a sandpit, and this analogy has been over-extended, but you get the point.
House Gymnastics , the print bible for those interested in a fast growing international community, was recently published, bringing moves such as Upper Door Frame Grab and One-Handed Starfish to a whole new audience.
The basic premise of House Gymnastics is devastatingly simple: strike poses by balancing on whatever is available to you in your home. There's no particular purpose to the whole affair, other than your own amusement (and, probably, to impress girls, but this is just supposition). The book provides a wealth of suggested moves you can "bust" - it also contains a glossary of HG terms - all accompanied by stylish line drawings of how these moves should look if "busted" correctly. The diagrams give the book the feel of a 70s science textbook, and the dry, ambiguously ironic text adds to the kitsch aesthetic. While it seems Harrison and Ford take the performance of House Gym quite seriously, their presentation of it is entertainingly close to a camp comic strip detailing the domestic arrangements of gold medal Romanian gymnasts. It's quite charming, a stereotypically British mixture of straight faces and lunacy. It's not all fun and games, though, as "Personal injury is a likely event" when cocking about in your domestic environment, so be warned.
Although House Gymnastics was invented after a particularly convoluted attempt to put up a blind, it has grown, via the deadpan website, into something of a trend. It's even worked it's way round to notorious culturephobes such as FHM and at least one economics student I know of. This conjures up a lovely image of houses across the country celebrating as someone successfully executes a Shelf Pirouette for the first time, or commiserating when someone stacks an xXx onto their head. The only thing that stops me wholeheartedly endorsing this book as a tool of Bill and Ted-like world peace is that either Harrison or Ford (I forget which) came to a party at my house, and, in demonstrating some moves to pissed up revellers, knocked chunks out of my stairwell wall, and my damage deposit. Change the title to Someone Else's House Gymnastics, and I'll reconsider my all-important endorsement.
Nick Tebbutt, You Are Here Visual Arts, March 2004
Selected reviews and interviews:
LeftLion You Are Here Visual Arts ICE Magazine BBC News Online Leeds Guide Sydney Sunday Telegraph Tablet Newspaper Nottingham Evening Post Folha de S.Paulo Newspaper Dazed&Confused City Lights
LeftLion You Are Here Visual Arts ICE Magazine BBC News Online Leeds Guide Sydney Sunday Telegraph Tablet Newspaper Nottingham Evening Post Folha de S.Paulo Newspaper Dazed&Confused City Lights
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