SINGAPORE: Fancy a quick workout? There’s a new gym that just opened at Aliwal Arts Centre.

But don’t expect your typical health and fitness haunt. As you enter its doors, you will notice something odd about the equipment. The weights for the lat pulldown machines are microwave ovens. The step board is a car tyre. The dumbbells are made of clear resin that reveal flowers. As for the leg press machine … is that a car seat?

The functional gym is actually a new exhibition-installation by the Singaporean art collective DXXXXD. It’s called No Regrets For Our Youth and it will be open to the public until next month. It’s also one of the highlights at one-day Aliwal Urban Arts Festival, which will take place on Saturday (Jan 14).

The title of the interactive work was taken from a 1946 film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, and the show itself looks at the idea of gym culture today, said Muhammad Izdi, a member of DXXXXD, along with Angie Seah, Gerald Leow, Razi Razak, Khairuddin Hori, and Speak Cryptic.

“The members have always worked on subcultures, and for the festival, we chose gym culture because it’s something that’s unexpected when one talks about street or urban culture. And because gym culture has been very popular in recent times, we thought it’d be very interesting to approach it.”

CREATING A DIY GYM

In true street culture fashion, their approach was very DIY. Aside from appropriating found objects to create Frankenstein-like versions of gym equipment, they’ve also built others from scratch – the two gym rigs, with their monkey bars, were welded together from scratch. 

But while these may look comparatively flimsy compared to the shiny new gear at a proper gym, the collective actually did a lot of research before creating their own equipment. They went to fitness equipment stores and checked out online videos. “We studied how the mechanisms worked and then we built our structures based on these,” said Mr Izdi.

And if you’re still unsure about whether this equipment is safe, he said a personal trainer and nutrition coach, Eat Train Love’s Cheryl Lin, will be holding workout sessions on Jan 14 and Feb 11 at the gym.

“It’ll be very interesting to see how she’s going to use our equipment,” he said, pointing out that it’s exactly this disconnect between what people expect a gym to look like and what they see in reality that was the point of the whole show.

“Function-wise, it’s the same. The microwave (weights) are really heavy, and they really work your triceps. In terms of purpose and function, it’s the same (as conventional gym equipment). The only difference is aesthetics.”

Art collective DXXXXD (from left) Speak Cryptic, Gerald Leow, Razi Razak, Khairuddin Hori, Angie Seah and Muhammad Izdi. (Photo: DXXXXD)

FROM SPORT TO VANITY

And the DIY aesthetic is very much intentional. Because of the nature of fitness equipment, going to gyms has always involved a certain level of risk, he said. “It’s just that in here, the risk looks much more obvious. When the visitors come into the space, they’re confronted by this whole rustic and rugged look, which make them question whether the gym is actually working. So there’s a bit more effort involved here. They have to find out how the machines work, then they can try.”

No Regrets For Our Youth is, in part, a critique and parody of today’s gym culture. Amid the motivational posters and even merchandise, there’s a small screen showing a video that could very well be a nod to aerobics videos. And slyly positioned among the equipment are car and motorcycle rear-view mirrors – to see oneself flexing those muscles.

Small mirrors are everywhere as commentary on the vanity seen in today’s gym culture. (Photo: Mayo Martin)

“Before, people went to the gym for athletics and sports but now it’s become very mainstream – everyone does it. And because of social media, people spend more time taking pictures of themselves in the gym. It’s no longer about the sport but more about vanity, how good you look and how you present yourself to people.”

But the critical nature of the show shouldn’t stop visitors from working up a sweat. In fact, for those who are intimidated by conventional gyms, No Regrets For Our Youth might even be a starting point.

“Most of the equipment here is pretty much quite straightforward. You just have to be playful and interact a lot. You just have to be curious enough to try out.”

SINGAPORE: Authorities will seal off the area around the old Bukit Timah Station in the first quarter of this year, to lay a 22-km stretch of water pipes to feed the Central Business District.

The closure had originally been slated for the third, and then the fourth quarter of 2016.

The section – which stretches from the PIE/Jalan Anak Bukit Flyover to Holland Road – is the last along the Rail Corridor to be closed. Singapore’s national water agency PUB said work has already begun near Greenleaf Walk, and the rest of the stretch will be closed progressively.

One of two steel bridges near the Rail Mall in Upper Bukit Timah. (Photo: Loke Kok Fai)

Authorities will provide a 2m-wide access path from the PIE/Rifle Range Road to Holland Road near Bukit Sedap during the closure, so that the stretch will remain accessible for pedestrians.

Areas will progressively be reopened from the end of 2017. The stretch on which the station sits is scheduled to reopen in the fourth quarter of 2018. The area will later be developed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to cater to workplaces and homes in the vicinity, though some stretches such as that near the Bukit Timah Railway Station “can remain more natural”, said a URA spokesperson.

Visitors told Channel NewsAsia they hoped that any development work done would preserve the area’s countryside nature, as well as its iconic bridges and rail tracks.

“It’s very nice because it’s still very rustic,” said retiree Matilda Woo. “We get to walk and experience the old railway, and we see a lot of people cycling.”

“It’s very rare in Singapore to have clean, flat land that you can have an easy walk on,” said Ms Gladys Thio, also a retiree.

Mr Eric Tay, who decided to have his wedding photographs taken along one of the corridor’s iconic steel bridges before the stretch closed, said he appreciated the history of the former railway line, which once linked Penang to Singapore.

“It’s a very pretty railway line that’s been closed off. (My fiancee and I) came here to preserve some memories,” said Mr Tay in Mandarin.

The old Bukit Timah Railway Station (Photo: Loke Kok Fai)

Other visitors, such as club DJ Adam Averdal, said they hoped the stretch could encourage more people to take up sports in the great outdoors. “A lot of Singaporeans, we work a lot and even students study a lot and they don’t get out enough. And even when they do go out, they go to shopping malls, other buildings, cinemas,” he said.

Some felt that the place could also be better signposted. 

“Sometimes it’s difficult to find where you can access it (the stretch), if you haven’t gone with a friend before or looked carefully on maps,” said Ms Sofia Haakansson, a Swede who bikes the stretch twice a week. “The signage on how to get onto the green corridor could be greatly improved.”

Environmental group Nature Society (Singapore) said it hopes that however the place is developed, awareness would also be raised of Singapore’s rich biodiversity.

“The magic and beauty of the rail corridor is the forest and the greenery that you see alongside,” said the group’s vice-president Leong Kwok Peng.

“We very much hope that in whatever design and master planning that’s going to take place, (it) keeps as much of all this wild growth and the forest intact. Because that is what gives magic to the corridor.”

SINGAPORE — Parents should not use prams on escalators, said the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), following an incident on Wednesday (Jan 11) when a stroller got stuck and dislodged an escalator step.

The incident, which took place at Raffles Place MRT station, was the first such reported case since the new escalator regulatory regime kicked in last November requiring owners to report any incident involving death, injury or malfunction of safety-critical components, said the BCA.

There were no injuries involved in the Raffles Place MRT station incident, said the BCA. Its spokesman said the authority is aware of one other such incident last year.

For their children’s safety, parents should not be pushing their strollers onto escalators, the BCA said, adding that this advice is in escalator safety posters that have been disseminated to building owners and escalator contractors.

The posters advise people pushing luggage, prams or trolleys to use the lifts instead of escalators.

Nine out of 10 parents interviewed by TODAY, however, said they were unaware of such safety advice.

A 29-year-old mother-of-two, Ms Mariam said she pushes her stroller onto escalators in shopping malls and train stations to avoid the crowd and waiting time near the lifts. She said: “I didn’t know and have never seen such safety posters near escalators.”

The BCA told TODAY it does not regulate users’ behaviours nor enforce that escalator owners display such safety reminders for escalator use.

For some like mother-of-three Ms Hidaya, who are aware of the safety guideline, there is little choice given the long queues for the lifts.

The 30-year-old said although she has seen the safety warnings, she rarely complies with the advice as it is “quicker to take the escalator” as long as the stroller is “light enough to manage”.

In response to Wednesday’s incident, SMRT’s vice-president for corporate information and communications Patrick Nathan said: “SMRT makes every effort to ensure that commuters have a safe travel experience in our network. We have station announcements and signage to remind commuters to be alert, and to prompt them on the safe use of escalators in our network. Commuters are also reminded through these announcements and signage to use passenger lifts if travelling with prams or young children, or when carrying bulky items.”

When approached by TODAY, Frasers Centrepoint Malls, which run the likes of The Centrepoint and Causeway Point, and Mapletree Investments, which operates Vivocity and Harbourfront, said they have signs at escalators to caution shoppers against bringing their prams or bulky items onto the escalators.

Photo: Harbourfront Centre

TODAY understands that these signs have been up even before Wednesday’s incident at Raffles Place.

A Mapletree spokesman said: “Our malls have been vigilant in providing precautionary messages to inform the public to take care when they board escalators.”