“Panoramic massive ocean views await you at this custom Tuscan Villa built in 2008. Sitting on 2.5 Acres, this 4,198 SF estate exhumes [sic] luxury living from the inside and throughout. Stunning coastline, Queen's Necklace, and Catalina Island views are surrounded by rock formation, nature, in this tranquil hilltop retreat. Interior of the main house has a contemporary feel and ocean views from almost every room. Master bed has large cedar closet, voluminous vaulted ceilings, and private balcony featuring the most incredible vantage point.” Real Estate copy, AnonymousActual Size is pleased to present Without, A View, an interdisciplinary collaboration between artist Yelena Zhelezov and economist Sara Constantino. Approaching the exhibition as an experiment, Constantino and Zhelezov investigate the anthropocentric gaze and the possibilities that emerge through a hybridization of art and academic research.Through a series of sculptures, as well as video and audio gestures, they examine how the human-centered view has been used to systematically measure, organize, rate, value and transform the appearance of “natural” landscapes for human consumption and possession. In the quoted real estate copy, the massive wild blue body of the ocean -- a complex ecosystem containing multitudes of animals and habitats -- is flattened into an inert panoramic image awaiting a fortunate viewer. The writer goes on to describe how the estate “exhumes luxury living from the inside and throughout.” This typo or autocorrect reveals a human or digital subconscious. “Exhume” is a geological term meaning “to expose a land surface that was buried” but more commonly it refers to the unearthing of a corpse. Here, luxury living is extracted: from the outside-in, the corpse of domestic comfort is reanimated by contemporary vaulted ceilings and ensconced in ocean vistas. The works on view express the ideas and values latent in an extensive collection of texts related to home ownership and the view as a value proposition. The sources referenced range from real estate copy, to property law, academic papers on environmental psychology, landscape esthetics and forestry, classic works of American Romanticism, and Scenic Beauty Estimation manuals. In the exhibit audio citations from these texts describe unseen views, videos of 3D renderings from real estate websites invite visitors to journey through unbuilt homes looking out on fabricated natural scenes, vacuum sealed plastic bags asphyxiate natural and man-made detritus, plexiglass pedestals support ceramic indices of domestic space and their empty window frames, and translucent curtains of real estate copy obscure the literal views from the gallery, darkening the room and conjuring spectacular new vistas.
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