couchprojects

• description: order online: http://www.blurb.com/user/store/angiewaller

  "Home of Tycoons," titled after a condominium complex in China, investigates real estate marketing in Beijing during 2004 – only moments before the old city would be completely demolished and replaced by high-rises, stadiums and suburban gated communities.

  Through photo documentation and sampling of poorly translated Chinese to English sales materials, "Tycoons" explores the fantastical side of home ownership in China. An example, the brochure for Beijing's Long Island community declares – "This isn't an age that dare not speak up wealth, this is an age that needs to use wealth to sublime one's life."

  Other residences studied include: MoMA, SOHO and The Home of Tycoons.

  10x8 inches (25x20 cm) 104 pages

View from entry, video monitor with video of Beijing model making factory and foot massage demonstrations

• description: One-day installation at ESL Projects in Los Angeles

  Using real estate marketing materials collected in Beijing, Fatty Duck transformed the droll, contemporary practice of high-end real estate development into a romantic, deconstructed homage to mid-century Communist dramas of urban progress.

  The small storefront was filled with a variety of images and videos. The video in the front of the store faded between scenes from an architecture model-making factory and a taxi ride on the chaotic streets of Beijing. Displayed on the interior wall, enlarged Xeroxes of the model-making factory’s models in-progress provided a metaphorical representation of the high velocity of new building developments. The other elements of the exhibition documented model home interiors that promote specific westernized lifestyles ranging from SoHo city-dweller to Long Island suburbanite. An architectural fly-through was projected on the back wall. The original source was collected from a development called "Home of Tycoons." This served as the title for the catalogue I created to supplement the exhibition.