House

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  House | 2016

This video is a contemporary reinterpretation of an obscure song by Czech pop singer Hana Zagorová from the early 1980s. In the lyrics to the wistful song “Sorry, I'm sorry” is a metaphorical sketch of a house where a woman is indulged in luxury. According to the era when the song first appeared, the viewer perceives a lifestyle of comfort and well-being. This perceived luxury, however, becomes a kind of a prison for the woman. The project links two houses, symbolically representing local icons of modernist architecture. Villa Tugendhadt in Brno and Villa Müller in Prague relate by their years of construction (1928-1930). The updated text of the new version of the song shows subtle signs and fragments of feminist discourse and critique over functionalist architecture. Confusing cuts of footage of the interior and exterior of the villa in Brno and the other villa in Prague creates an illusion that it is one and the same building. A handheld camera copies the motion of the original music video filmed in 1980 at a TV studio. The main actor is completely missing from the frame, whereas “the house” is newly reconstructed.