Eyes glued to the television set, watching hours of soap operas, sitcoms or Big Brother series, one becomes aware that the living room is as much a display case, a manifestation of social status, or a stage for human interaction, as it is the private domain into which one retreats from the public realm.

"Meanwhile, in the living room...", is an installation built for the exhibition HOME at TENT. Using blue screen techniques, the audience was cut and paste into a home in the neighborhood, in a way that is reminiscent of Richard Hamilton’s collage: “Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?”. At the same time, visitors could take guided tours to the actual living room in a home on the Witte de With street (Rotterdam), where they could watch a video playing on the TV-set.

Meanwhile, in the living room... Entornos Próximos

2006 Videoinstallation

We constructed an adaptation of this installation for the exhibition "Entornos Proximos" in Artium, Museum of Contemporary Art in Vitoria. Again, a representation of the generic living room as seen in most sitcoms was built, with a blue cloth as background. But instead of using the chromakey technique to let the viewers see themselves on the TV monitor, we played back a video recorded of the visitors in our first installation in Rotterdam. Triggered by a motion sensor, the people in the video only move according to the movements of the public inside the installation.