INERS Passive-Dress Double-Gravity Suit System (more images: 1 and 2), by Hungarian artist Antal Lakner weighs about 40 kilos and you need the help of two assistants to put it on.

“The Passive Dress puts to the test one of the human body’s fundamental functions – holding itself in position against the gravitational force of the planet where we live.

Passive Dress changes the maintenance of the normal posture and stablisation of the body, i.e. the musculoskeletal load of pure involuntary existence, and simple movements, into hard physical effort.”

The suit is part of the Passive Working Devices, a sarcastic view on how hi-tech machines have changed people’s relationship with the environement and with their own bodies.

Forest Master – the saw bench

Lakner’s machines transform seemingly meaningful human activity into meaningless physical exertion, leisure activity and entertainment, whilst immaterialising work itself. Sweating 20 minutes on the wall-painting workout machine is no more absurd than spending the same amount of time on a rowing bench. Technological development and industrialisation have made us lazier than ever so we feel the urge to get some physical exertion in an “artificial” way.

See it at Positioning − In the New Reality of European Art from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

Via Metroblogging Tokyo.

Related: The suit that makes you feel old.