Home for Living
Video runtime 8:26 (2001)
Have the energy bills been skyrocketing lately and you just can’t figure out why? This video displays what your house may be doing while you are on vacation or at work. The high tech integration of in-home environmental controls and networking have become a reality for the wealthy.
Modern architecture calls for cheap and synthetic materials. A house is no longer made of native materials, only foreign. What began with Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus, and “De Stijl” has ended with over specialization, standardization and mass production. A house is a machine for living in. There is a certain mystique to the machine. Can you take apart your appliances and fix them? Call the repairman.
Corporations promised us a life of leisure if we purchased that microwave, toaster, roaster, freezer, grill, washing machine and dryer combo. Do these devices really enhance our standard of living? What happens when technology goes so far as to make our living environments self sustaining? Will there be a possibility of our homes just running amok, malfunctioning from faulty circuitry due to cheap components? These are central questions I asked myself when developing this video as I was inspired by a Ray Bradbury short story.
