DESIRING

EYE:

REVIEWING

THE

SLOW

HOUSE

The multimedia installation Desiring Eye tells the story of the Slow House, an unrealized project for a private residence on Long Island. Twenty-four freestanding displays are serially arranged on the installation’s sloped base. Each frame positions a liquid crystal panel in front of a drawing, model, or other artifact representing the project. The screens pulse on and off, oscillating between transparent and opaque states, alternately obscuring or exposing the artifacts behind them. When the screen is opaque, text on its surface becomes legible. The collected texts and artifacts explain the most significant aspects of the house. The display system reinforces the preoccupation of the Slow House with mediated and unmediated vision. Although construction of the house was abruptly halted, the project continued to materialize in new manifestations that now belong to various museum collections.

Desiring Eye: Reviewing the Slow House opened in 1992 at Gallery Ma in Tokyo, and the following year at Le Magasin in Grenoble, France and arc en rêve centre d’architecture in Bordeaux.