[2008] Vertical Villa

Architectural model from painted MDF and transparent film on acrylic-glass, rear-projection video, wooden table construction, poster, curtain
Approx. 500 x 191 x 184 cm

Vertical Villa investigates through installation, video, graphic design and digital intervention, the social imagery and variety of visual codes established in our global society through commercial advertisements and the film industry. Set somewhere between a cinematic establishing shot, a special effects model for a possible film, and a marketing strategy for a commercial real estate company, it combines documentary material and stock footage, as well as samples from cinema and real estate advertisements, in order to create a scenario that intends to highlight different possibilities of its reading: a fragment of an unfinished high-rise with multiple perspective views into a luxury apartment building, a video backdrop with an animated sky and explosion, and a promotional poster form an ensemble set between an idyllic and dystopian science-fiction.

"[...] In Vertical Villa, Karina Nimmerfall succeeds to redefine in a very complex and aesthetically convincing way, the question asked already by the legendary collage of pop-artist Richard Hamilton in 1956, 'Just what is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing?', into our postmodern language of digital intelligence and ubiquitous media, in a new and surprising way. [...]" - Raimar Stange