In Xanadu

In Xanadu, 2017

Single-channel video, newsprints, two-channel video, lambda prints, vinyl record.

In Xanadu is a two-part installation that chronicles utopian loss through both the architecture and life story of futurist architect Roy Mason.

In the first part, a single-channel video projection depicts fictional family members John, Mary, and their teenage son John, Jr. on a typical day living in a fully computerized utopian home. The story has been adapted from Mason’s book "Xanadu: The Computerized Home of Tomorrow & How It Can Be Yours Today," which was available at Xanadu: the Home of the Future in Kissimmee, FL, from 1982-1996.
The story is illustrated by manipulated drawings from the book, rendered in 3D space, as well as archival footage of the site in ruins before it was demolished.

The second part of the installation is comprised of seven abstracted newsprints detailing the death of Mason and his partner Brian Carneal. The latter died of AIDS complications in 1995, after which Mason was murdered by his 19-year old lover. Also featured is a two-channel Google Street View composite of both sides of the street on which Mason was murdered, as well as two Lambda prints of Google Earth imagery that document the gradual disappearance of the Xanadu House in Florida.

Cumulatively, these works place a futurist utopian vision rooted in capitalist pragmatism beside a brutal reality in order to locate the trace of a future that has not yet been thought and is not yet here.