T R A N S C R I P T

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The house is designed as a passage. It has no front facade, only a front door, 4 feet wide and 18 feet high. Beyond the door, the passage forks in plan and section. One half deviates to the right, ascending to the living area on the way to the picture window and view. The other half remains level and deviates to the left, feeding the private spaces on the way to the view. The house is simply a door that leads to a window: physical entry to optical departure. It's a retreat from "artifice" to "nature"-- artifice, being the city (or culture operating at its most apparent), to "nature," the view (culture operating at its utmost subtlety). At the wide end of the house are two stacks. On the right is the chimney. The left stack holds a video camera at its summit that is directed at the water view. This camera feeds a TV monitor in the living space that floats in front of the picture window. The electronic image is grafted onto the image through the picture window to form a composite view, but the horizon will always be out of register.

The camera can pan and zoom by remote control. When recorded, the view may be deferred. That is, day played back at night, fair weather played back in foul. The view is also portable; it can be transported to different locations in the house. The view can also be video-streamed at the computer back in the city apartment. Liveness suggests the unmediated, the real. Mediated, on the other hand, suggests the compromised, the degenerated, the filtered, even the tampered with and doctored. This project was meant to question: is the view any more real through the picture window than on the video screen? Is it any more live? Is it more alive? Is it any less mediated? We think not.

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