Liquid Levittown:
Codex for a Post-Normative SuburbiaLocation: Levittown, New York
Partner: Alejandra Sanchez Tata
Critics: Adam Elstein, Michele Gorman, Jeffrey Hogrefe
Archived: Spring 2020
Awarded Top Honors, Pratt Thesis Awards
Published in July issue of Trans-Journal
Liquid Levittown is a visual polemic that posits alternative forms of living in a Suburban world made strange. We deploy techniques inspired by surrealist juxtaposition and reframing to create an alternative archival “codex” that critiques the normative conditions of Suburbia as typified in Levitttown NY. We project a strange alternative to the existing Levittown norm that allows for differences to be expressed amongst suburban dwellers, heightening individual freedom and collective equity. By both inverting and subverting the banal, globalized objects of materialist desire, we aim to advance a post-capitalist imaginary that can potentiate a freer and more equitable suburban existence.
Consume:
to eat, drink, or ingest. to buy.
to use up.
to absorb.
to completely destroy.
Globalize:
to become developed so as to make international influence possible.
Dissociate:
to disconnect or separate
(especially in abstract contexts).
to eat, drink, or ingest. to buy.
to use up.
to absorb.
to completely destroy.
Globalize:
to become developed so as to make international influence possible.
Dissociate:
to disconnect or separate
(especially in abstract contexts).
Levittown:
A model for suburbia that has since been reappropriated, deployed, and commercialized around the world.
Banal:
So lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.
Unheimlich:
The unhomely; everything that ought to have remained… secret and hidden but has come to light. -Anthony Vidler
A model for suburbia that has since been reappropriated, deployed, and commercialized around the world.
Banal:
So lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.
Unheimlich:
The unhomely; everything that ought to have remained… secret and hidden but has come to light. -Anthony Vidler
Contraband, Taryn SimonLists, classifications, and vertical stratifications are elements integral to maintaining order in the American pathology of normalcy. Through flexible classifications, we outline the ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies of classifying objects and people as a way to organize and contain human thought. Looking past the conventional associations of commodified objects, we are able to redefine and reassemble objects and their qualities to promote a new way of consuming.
Paintings of Liquid Levittown:
1. Portrait of a Spoon 2. Portrait of a Liquid Curtain 3. Portrait of a Shaved Couch
Codex for Levittown
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Physical Models and Drawings: Kitbashing Homely Scenarios
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Physical Models and Drawings: Kitbashing Homely Scenarios
Encyclopedia of Homely
Objects
About Solitude
Dark(ness)
Ornamental
For a Continued Existence
About Consumption
That Which Transports You
Of Gathering
Those that Alter
Not Belonging
Outward Looking
By exploiting these different forms of identification through surrealist practices, strange, yet productive and compelling object relationships emerge within domestic life, forming New Global Objects.
Objects
About Solitude
Dark(ness)
Ornamental
For a Continued Existence
About Consumption
That Which Transports You
Of Gathering
Those that Alter
Not Belonging
Outward Looking
By exploiting these different forms of identification through surrealist practices, strange, yet productive and compelling object relationships emerge within domestic life, forming New Global Objects.
The Persistence of Consumption
Gathering of Sleepy Activities
The Apotheosis of Suburbia
Click image to experience Liquid Levittown in Virtual (Sur)Reality
