Video 20 minutes. Click here to view an excerpt of the piece (please view this in full screen with sound on).
At the House of Mr X by Elizabeth Price takes as its subject the home of an anonymous art collector, designed and built in the late 1960s. Only briefly inhabited, the House and its contents remain immaculately preserved.
The film opens as a visit to the house. A slow, visual tour begins, proceeding from the entrance through open-plan areas, into every room. The elegant geometry of the spaces, the varied materials of the architecture, and the luxurious modernist furnishings are attentively documented. In particular, the camera dwells upon gleaming, reflective surfaces: the lustre of coloured glass; bright plastics and the liquid-shine of chrome.
The tour is directed by a silent narrator, present as an on-screen script, punctuated with percussion and close-harmony vocal arrangements. This narrator is the Guide for the tour, and the only protagonist in the film. Its script is collaged from documents relating to the House, art collection, and business ventures of the former resident, who generated his wealth through cosmetics brands Outdoor Girl and Mary Quant. The resulting combination of administrative, curatorial and commercial languages, produces an equivocal identity: as you move through the pristine interiors the tone shifts from deadpan taxonomical description to the solicitation and innuendo of advertising copy.
Your visit provides the only incident interrupting the listless inertia of the House. Under the direction of the Guide, you are ushered through the interiors, invited to enjoy its luxury, exhorted to fully inhabit the exquisite memorial.
