In this transition from the rural to the urban there are a lot of phases. A curiosity in this sense represents the Fitness Room in the Eastern European villages, a hype from the 90s triggered by watching the following American movie heroes: Rambo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Lee.
They were the ideal masculine model with the a perfect body reflecting the idea that a strong body would guarantee success, total gain, encoding the force and integrity of the male.
Always in the movie there was the moment of training, were the character was developing his physical skills with a nearly psychotic ambition; abilities that would transform them into instant heroes, invincible in the battle, embodying the idea of perfection. The training would thus be a necessary phase to get closer/associate with your favorite hero.Thus were born these surrogate fitness rooms, with improvised gear, and i was spending most of the summers in the village, so the cowshed became in my case a cult space and a factory for making heroes. This space is not unique, it exists in every village and town. It became a movement. Working the land didn’t have the same appeal in a period of transition from the rural to the urban and it was a normal activity for anybody looking for a better life. Plow, wheels, buckets… former agricultural tools were transformed (literally) into machines for building muscles.
The peasant had now the opportunity to become a real hero.

Hero Factory, video, color, sound, 04:10 min., 2008.