Open House Divided Estates



A film by Eileen Simpson and Ben White

Shot on location in Mexico City, Open House | Divided Estates takes as its starting point the intimate spaces of Casa Barragán, the former home of architect Luis Barragán, and his idiosyncratic collection of vinyl records. Shelves of vinyl, record turntables and speaker systems are installed in almost every room in Barragán’s house, including hidden speakers in the garden. The film reanimates the architect's extensive record collection through playback, choreographed camera moves and lip synch.

Open House | Divided Estates attempts to open out the public domain territory of Barragán’s record collection while exploring the grey zone of the building's image rights. The film explores both the complex web of propriety rights locked within the vinyl collection and images of the house in relation to their legal position and public access.

The soundtrack to Open House | Divided Estates is created entirely from copyright-expired recordings and fair use samples taken from the extensive and idiosyncratic record collection. For MK Gallery a new version of Open House | Divided Estates has been assembled for European distribution in 2014. The film and its soundtrack are distributed under a copyleft license (by-sa 3.0).

MK Gallery 900 Midsummer Blvd Milton Keynes MK9 3QA

1 - 31 May 2014

A looped screening in the first floor Video Space throughout gallery opening hours.

this project was initiated during:

En vivo. Performance and Performativity curated by de_sitio