1 August 2003
a-n Magazine (p.9)

Easyexercises.com, a website by Adele Prince, is inspired by Bruce Tegner’s book Isometric Power Exercises, which suggests ways of integrating exercises into daily routine. Prince’s re-interpretation purports to apply this technique to contemporary pursuits such as using mobile phones and remote controls. However, these are the only revisions, leaving this work weaker than her previous projects like Safety Instructions: DJ where she looked at the dangers of being a DJ, diagrammatically representing the hazards of paper cuts, perforated eardrums and sleep deprivation.

Unlike Lost-something.co.uk, Prince’s picture archive of found objects, Easyexercises sits uncomfortably on the web. If this work is delivered under the premise that there is no topic too small to find an on line audience, then it surely lacks the gritty reality or absurdity of the real thing like www.usedaoldisks.com – a picture archive of all AOL free trial CD covers.

Easyexercises comments on timekeeping and fitness obsessions. The work makes its point on the splash page, leaving the rest of the site without surprises. Although this approach works well for Chindogu – the Japanese art of useless inventions – as net art it has a shelf-life somewhere between skimmed milk and Flash Player 6. The content is better dealt with in works like TicTac Typing & Peanut Typing by Ellie Harrison where users type off the energy consumed in one tic-tac, or Exercise Bike, a video installation of the artist riding an exercise bike on a main road for a whole afternoon, going nowhere.

If you are unfamiliar with Adele Prince it’s certainly worth checking out www.adeleprince.com where you will find documentation of her other projects, but for integrated exercise we would spend time at www.sandowplus.co.uk where you will find a scanned copy of the book that inspired the work.

Paul Smith & Vicky lsley