Lorraine Sandy Creative, 161116 – Fruit Pastels

161116 – Fruit Pastels – c09/1991 London > words

Fruit Pastels – When will my apple taste as good as my apple drink?

Aspirational Living and the Predator House Project September 1991.

In the early 1970’s we ate Instant Whip in day glow bright orange, greens and pinks, we wore platform shoes finished in metal-flake purple fauve leather with snakeskin toes and heart shaped buckles, we listened to Glam Rock and lengthy concept albums. The Bounty bar arrived from its tropical island delivered by a dusky mistress of the sun. A would be Bond risks life and limb to transport his gift of Milk Tray. Manikin cigars, those that make ‘you’ the real man, are hand rolled by a husky voiced exotic Amazonian, she’s curved with ample everything. We dressed as genderless rock stars, we jacked up our cars, added false bonnet scoops and spoilers, covered our seats in leopard print. We were sold the dream of this aspirational life and we soaked it up as the reality of the 1970’s with its poverty, unemployment and endless strikes was just so bad. The 1970’s were escapist and fake, a dreamland created for a society that needed diversion from dissolution. This aspirational life became our reality. As our presold dream always outperformed our real life we soon began converting reality to daydream and in this, and only in this space, could we bare to exist. Club life, football life, fanzines and groupies anything to replace the soulless decanting of the nine to five. The TV screen became the primary habitable space. Decades on the separation between reality and imagined lifestyle continues to grow, it blurs and strengthens until the line between real and unreal is so normalised that we all now live suspended within the dream hoping for a better tomorrow.

How can we exist in a world where our dreams by far exceed our obtainable reality without falling under the blanket of depression weighed heavy by our own obvious inadequacies. Our expectations are pre-set so high that life is now solitary as one is never quite able to meet the ideal, perfect in everyway partner, the one we were supposed to meet through our TV ad compatible surrogate.

Predator House explored the potential of these issues to create a house for those that enjoy being marginalised and disenfranchised. With the adaptive camouflage of the chameleons skin, LEDs in the glass mimic the surroundings. Above ground the house does its best to be invisible, an anonymous wallflower, the critic in the corner, the shadow. The outside world is viewed at a distance the house offers a safe arms length third party lifestyle. The Predator House hides as a Rene Magritte’s Le Blanc-Seing, a visual static breakdown, a glitch in the system, the home of a misplaced, misled, misfit. The space above ground, the glasshouse, has no intent to be lived in but instead is the guise of the voyeur, a hidden space from where reality can be viewed. It is below ground where one inhabits ones preferred well-edited, non-confrontational, aspirational realities, the daydreams. Space here is in constant flux, it adapts to ones moods, it can be pre-set and predetermined, its intensity can be turned up and down as wished, just as one sets mood and volume for music. The space could be left on constant shuffle or instead explore a pre-chosen compilation based around the theme of happy yellow or whatever one wishes. The virtual plan of the below ground far exceeds its physical enclosure as it can be both room or landscape, a country walk or a comfy sofa. The space is a virtual space that exists in real space-time blurring the edges of what’s real and imaginary. It is the celebrity space I want and not the mildewed, rental, rat infested, HMO micro pad, four jumpers and a set of thermals, space that I got.