ZAYNE ARMSTRONG
Maximal Hostel
multimedia installation
Hey there, tired souls! 🌟 Welcome to MAXIMAL HOSTEL: Where Dreams Unfold, and Productivity Never Sleeps! 🌙 In the pulsating world of Days, where living and working coalesce seamlessly, we proudly present Maximal Hostel - your dynamic sanctuary for 24/7 productivity. And guess what? Our secret weapon to keep you fueled and refreshed is none other than our revolutionary "SlumberBoost" program! 🛌 Sleep Standing Up – Because Why Not? Our innovative sleeping pods let you experience rest in a whole new way. Embrace the freedom to choose your sleep position, whether it's horizontal, vertical, or somewhere in between. It's your stay, your rules! Our walls are not just walls; immerse yourself in the ever-changing tapestry that surrounds you! 🌟 Meet the Characters of MAXIMAL:
👨💼 Hans - The Mastermind:
As your dedicated manager, Hans ensures that the hostel is not just a place to rest but a bustling hub for non-stop productivity. With a past that transcends the ordinary, Hans makes sure your stay is a one-of-a-kind experience.
🔮 Marlie - The Gatekeeper:
At the reception desk, you'll find Marlie, the gatekeeper to your 24/7 adventure. With a friendly smile and unsolicited astrological advice, Marlie welcomes you to a world where the concept of downtime takes a back seat.
🌍 Beni - The Eternal Explorer:
Meet Beni, the perpetual flat-hunter who's chosen MAXIMAL as the epicenter of their never-ending search. Living here is not just a phase; it's a lifestyle. Beni understands that in the world of Days, the pursuit of the perfect space is an eternal quest.
Ready to embark on a revolutionary stay at MAXIMAL HOSTEL? Book your spot now and experience a world where dreams become multitasking realities. We redefine the meaning of work-life balance – because at MAXIMAL, it's ALL THE TIME! 🚀 #MaximalHostel #RevolutionizeYourStay #SleepArtistry
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During sleep we are more vulnerable to unworldly thoughts and forces
Our dreams create portals to other dimensions
But the outside can also find its way inside us
Used mattresses invite this disillusionment of borders
The perfume of mites, viruses, oils and ashes of past bodies linger
Triggering a total transformative journey down
Sliding into the stains, the worn tapestry, into the tares of time
The membrane of memory foam, asphalt, cobblestones, tar, sand
Curious fingers knit ethernet wire sinews with PVC pipes and lost keys
Copper marks, undead mortars, bronze sky disks leading us into the lush darkness
Under the bed’s felt layers of counted sheep traded to monster fangs
Swans calling squeaks of latex that will never dissolve in the landfill
Until red mountain juices melt us to the core.
Greta would say it’s your responsibility to buy used.
Maximal Hostel addresses identity in the neoliberal age – where work, leisure and appearance all serve as crucial markers for the experience of the self and one's position in the world. The work is a sculptural immersive installation, centered around a two channel video work where we meet the character Beni, who through changing their own appearance seeks to transform (and improve) themselves. The video work is an adaptation of Disney's version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid". Similar to Ariel trying to get legs in order to become human, Beni tries to reinvent themselves to overcome their insecurities. Through the use of social media “filters", the character peels off more and more filters in search of a new (or real) "self". The video is inspired by the soap opera trope of frequently recasting characters. Aesthetically, the filters are inspired by analog special effects used in the film world. In a more figurative sense, both the filters and the narrative of the video also play on the self-actualization and self-improvement propaganda that prevails in our time, where delicate egos through digital tools and channels create different versions of themselves in the service of capitalism. The video sits inside a furniture-like sculpture depicting a vaniy desk; a symbol of personal transformation, identity construction and production, and in that sense a physical and symbolic manifestation of the themes we explore in the video work. The vanity also alludes to the perpetual pursuit of beauty in today's society, which is yet another consequence of the cynical economic model that dictates our lives and bodies. Aesthetically, the vaniy mixes associations from Barbie furniture, ATMs and real estate advertisements found in public spaces.
The vanity is surrounded by other elements, which together can be read as Beni's inner psychological space. Maximal Hostel reflects on neoliberalism's expectation that work is something that takes place continuously whenever and wherever. The hostel serves as a metaphorical image of this existence by virtue of its function as a place for sleep, work and leisure. These blurred distinctions between public and private are also expressed aesthetically in these works, where we associatively interweave material elements associated with exterior and interior; for example images of cobblestones and parquet printed on polyester textile. Each stone and piece of parquet is filled with batting, which in turn makes these quilts three-dimensional. With this, we play with the idiom "falling through the cracks", which is emphasized by the cracks that are created between the different elements in each quilt. This is inspired by the idea of intersectionality, where majority members of many major political and activist groups tend not to account for the needs of minorities. By creating cracks in the works, we want to draw the audience's attention to those who fall outside, or "between the cracks", including precarious workers and others who fall outside the mainstream norms of society. In sum, the quilts form a collage of different places and states, where what is inside and outside, in the same way as the public and private, slide into each other. With their floor and ground motifs, they turn the room upside down, which is also reminiscent of the chaotic, precarious state of mind. In the ceiling, rats bite the quilt to stay afloat. The rats take their inspiration from luxury handbags, and are made of imitation leather with red plastic gemstones as eyes. BUY ONE HERE. With the rats, we want to humorously look at the idea of "fake it till you make it", and how we have gotten into the habit of always adapting to the demands of any work situation.
Despite its ambition to be a place that feels like home, the hostel is a place of transit. Guests stay there for a shorter or longer period of time before moving on, much like we do in our freelance life in search of the next assignment in our eternal quest for self-actualization. In this hostel room, we also find a “bunk bed” sculpture. Inspired by Agnes Martin's minimalism, the tradition of trompe-l'œil, and what takes place on mattresses (sleep, dreams, sex, work, depression, etc.), the mattresses are presented as a series of PAINTINGS! Each of paintings has some sort of staining or remnant of its use (one is an imagining of the urine of someone who ate a whole gobstopper/jawbreaker; another is a huge melted popsicle; another is the battery acid from exploded personal electronics; one is alphabet soup puked up roughly in the shapes of continents; another imagines the mattress that the demonically possessed girl lives on in “The Exorcist”. The audience can move between the mattress paintings in a way that invites the illusion that they are suddenly lying in bed, where they can get the feeling of sleeping standing up or working on the edge of the bed. In the bunk bed sculpture we find the character Xoom, currently busy on a Zoom call doing a German course together with other movie characters who are also stuck, from the films “A Clockwork Orange”, “The Blair Witch Project”, “Get Out”, “It Follows” and “Run Lola Run”, and TV show “The Act”.
Within Maximal Hostel you also find a sound installation comprising three paintings and a sound piece. The paintings are ‘restoration’ paintings made directly on printed sheets of a raptor from “Jurassic Park”, and on Elsa from “Frozen“ and on a minion from “Despicable Me” -- reminiscent of the naive “botched” restoration of Ecce Homo by Elias Garcia Martinez in Spain, popularized in media around 2013. The audio piece is primarily a spoken dialog between Elsa and the raptor, played through speakers behind the sheet paintings. The dialog is punctuated by long pauses where the minion sleeps with snores and some spoken minionese dialog as if from its sleep, which wakes Elsa and the raptor and they work from being strangers to Elsa giving the raptor advice about her acting career, to the raptor stealing Elsa’s next acting gig, to them fighting it out, and resolving it through mutual feelings of being trapped.
Maximal Hostel aims to address how not only things, but also people and identity, have become commodities in the global market economy. How have we, both as individuals and as a society, accepted this capitalization of living? Should we accept that we are always at work? How can we create leisure time when we are always available? And what kind of social life do we really have when we're always online? These questions are no longer just something the creative class can identify with. Descartes' basic principle was "I think, therefore I am". Today, one might say that neoliberalism has rephrased this to "I work, therefore I am". For many professionals, leisure time has been reduced to a way to refuel; watching a movie is synonymous with research; and being on social media is essential to staying relevant. The recent years of the pandemic have made these questions even more pertinent, as even permanent employees who have usually been able to better distinguish between when they are at work and when they are off have also been forced into the precarious model where the distinction between work and home ceases to exist. By inviting the audience to actively reflect on this, we hope that the project can create a more critical approach to this way of life that might also help us reclaim our free time and our own identity.
Beni: Under the Influencer, Agder Kunstsenter, Kristiansand (NO)
Images by KUNSTDOK/Tor Simen Ulstein
168,5 x 191 x 71 cm, video: 13 min
Mixed media
Full material list...
Plywood, lacquer, acrylic paint on plywood panels, glass, pine wood, electrical cable, single-channel video
96 cm x 205 cm x 244 cm, video: 13 min
Mixed media
Full material list...
Plywood, lacquer, acrylic paint on canvas, polypropylene fabric, pine wood, electrical cable, single-channel video
fake leather, plastic rhinestones, zippers, clamp, wood, acrylic laquer
476,5 X 293 cm
Quilt
Full material list...
Digital photo print on polyester fabric, silver lamé fabric, chip bag packaging, tobacco packaging, cotton batting, polyester duvets, cotton embroidery floss yarn, fake leather, stuffing, metal eyelets, zippers, hardware
469 X 269,5 cm
Quilt, with contributions from Alexander Engeli, Zubair Hussain, Helge R. Klette and Kevin Miller
Full material list...
Digital photo print on polyester fabric, greenscreen cotton poplin fabric, silver lamé fabric, velcro, polyester duvets, cotton yarn, sportswear clothing, football scarf
482 X 269 cm
Quilt
Full material list...
Digital photo print on polyester fabric, polyester fabric, silver lamé fabric, cotton batting, polyester duvets, pool noodles, cotton yarn, fake leather, plastic rhinestones, snap buttons, zippers, clamps
Blowout, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik (IS)
2 min 17 seconds
single channel color video, stereo sound
180 x 200 x 28 cm
acrylic on canvas
28 x 28 x 4 cm
acrylic on canvas
200 x 160 x 22.5 cm
acrylic on canvas
200 x 140 x 15.5 cm
acrylic on canvas
200 x 90 x 11.5 cm
acrylic on canvas
200 x 90 x 11.5 cm
acrylic on canvas
180 x 65 x 7 cm
acrylic on canvas
26 minutes, featuring Anna M. Szaflarski starring as ELSA, DINO and MINION
acrylic on prefabricated bed sheets, 2 channel audio file
Images from A:D: Curatorial, by Carsten Becker
Ausleben, Schulstraße 11, Freiburg (DE)
Images by Marlene Zoë Burz
18.06.-24.06.2023
GROUP SHOW: Apres Dèssert
Project Space Festival
A:D: Curatorial, Berlin (DE)
curated by Marco Schmitt
27.03-09.04.2023
GROUP SHOW: Ausleben
Frizz23, Berlin (DE)
curated by Marlene Zoë Burz, Manuel Kirsch, Björn Streeck
11.03-12.03.2023
GROUP SHOW: Ausleben
Schulstraße 11, Freiburg (DE)
curated by Manuel Kirsch
04.03.-02.04.2023
SOLO SHOW: Beni: Under the Influencer
Agder Kunstsenter, Kristiansand (NO)
20.08-24.09.2022
GROUP SHOW: Blowout
Kling & Bang, Reykjavik (IS)