Models on View

2019

In the gallery are models and images made from models and images. Existing models for three T+E+A+M projects – Ghostbox (a design for an abandoned ‘big box’ store), Detroit Reassembly Plant (a design for an abandoned factory), and Additional Address (a design for a tiny house) – serve as source material for a new set of models and images.We had planned to just show the original models, but they wouldn’t fit through the gallery door. Instead, we got excited about the conceptual problem of presenting models through other models – doubling down on mediation. For us, representation in the age of ubiquitous digitality is an open question and this seemed like a good opportunity to play with that ambiguity.

The models are made from photos of models mixed with similar materials (think rocks on top of images of rocks). They are oriented toward the gallery’s glass wall, intended to be viewed from the outside. In this way, they are scenographic, designed to be experienced visually. The exhibition plays with scale. The largest depiction is the façade of Ghostbox, rendered as a full-scale brick and CMU wall. Behind it is an image of a storage space with open crates that reveals physical models and images of computer monitors with illuminated photos of the existing models. On the far end is a reconstruction of one of our favorite Detroit Reassembly Plant photographs – a valley formed by a “mountain” and an “elephant” leading to a mirrored wall. It’s made of canvas, printed with images of the original model, draped over formwork. The rest of the physical entourage are props, things you might find in a warehouse.