An Architecture of Seduction

Reconstructed section of the “TV House” (142 Ocean Walk, Fire Island, NY)
Architectural fragment incorporating vintage 8mm film, c. 1980  

This work reconstructs a fragment of Fire Island’s “TV House,” a home designed by production designer Edwin Wittstein and art director Robert Miller in 1967. Drawing on the architectural language popularized by Horace Gifford, often described as an “architecture of seduction,” the modernist homes of Fire Island were designed to frame, expose, and direct the gaze of desire.

Upon entering the space, the viewer first encounters the mechanical whir of a projector before the image itself comes into view. The structure incorporates a 1980s pornographic film acquired from an anonymous lot of reels purchased on eBay. None of the films include titles, credits, or identified performers. Devoid of digital counterparts, they exist as fragile tethers to a history largely lost. The physical deterioration of the film, (most visible in its magenta tint), mirrors the fragility of the bodies depicted and the precarity of the histories they represent. An excerpt of the film is physically threaded into the architectural fragment, entwining the histories of the home and the film.