Where the facade bends plays with ‘neither real nor imaginary’ places. With collaged fragments of renderings, the video assembles a new space, a stage on a journey into the backsides, absurdities and ruptures of smooth surfaces.
Architectural renderings are highly realistic representations of places that don’t exist. These images stand halfway between an imaginary world and a future that will physically materialize. They play a role at several moments during the development of a project, whether it be to sell it to potential investors, to communicate it to the public, or to create a marketable image and story. Happy human archetypes are pasted into the ‘perfect’ house, which is placed in an idealized environment. At the core of this peculiar world-building practise, the narrative of hyper-perfection fashions a sleek paradise, reinforces capitalist norms and shapes our collective imagination of desirable lifestyles, cities and potential futures.
A video by Sophie Czich, with music and sound design by Juanlu Montoro and Ana Becerra Martínez.