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Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours)
Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours) uses video game software to imagine a future in which the Royal Academy of Arts in London has been sold to a Chinese billionaire as a luxury private mansion. A first-person perspective tour through their new abode is accompanied by a voiceover – translated from the high-society Tatler magazine into Mandarin – about how to hire and fire an 'army of household staff'. Drawing from the language of high-definition property marketing videos, the project presents a critical look at the capital's current housing crisis. The Royal Academy is itself on a rental contract from the government, and this fact shows the precarious status of even the nation's oldest and most revered art establishment. This is an uncannily familiar virtual world where a major cultural institution has been appropriated into commercial real estate. The work forms Chapter 9 of Lawrence Lek’s Bonus Levels project, a series of utopian/dystopian virtual worlds based on real places.
- Overview
- Cast
- Crew
Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours)
- Overview
- Cast
- Crew
Status
Released
Release Date
Apr 18, 2015
Runtime
0h 19m
Genres
Animation, Science Fiction
Original Title
Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours)
Production Companies
Dazed
Director
Lawrence Lek
Description
Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours) uses video game software to imagine a future in which the Royal Academy of Arts in London has been sold to a Chinese billionaire as a luxury private mansion. A first-person perspective tour through their new abode is accompanied by a voiceover – translated from the high-society Tatler magazine into Mandarin – about how to hire and fire an 'army of household staff'. Drawing from the language of high-definition property marketing videos, the project presents a critical look at the capital's current housing crisis. The Royal Academy is itself on a rental contract from the government, and this fact shows the precarious status of even the nation's oldest and most revered art establishment. This is an uncannily familiar virtual world where a major cultural institution has been appropriated into commercial real estate. The work forms Chapter 9 of Lawrence Lek’s Bonus Levels project, a series of utopian/dystopian virtual worlds based on real places.