extension#22 Art House Index - installation

In their research-based collaborative practice Vermeir & Heiremans focus on the dynamics between art, architecture, and economy. Central to this practice is the artists own home, a self-renovated loft apartment in a post-industrial building in Brussels, which they define as an artwork. Whilst keeping their home invisible, they create what they term 'mediated extensions' that create a kind of hyper-visibility for their domestic space through visually translating it into installations, videos and publications.

ART HOUSE INDEX (AHI) INSTALLATION, is a new 'extension' which proposes the creation of a new financial instrument that involves turning the idea of the home as an artwork into a financial tool.

Speaking to bankers about the fictive nature of contemporary financial products, the artists were struck by the creativity of banking in seeking to dematerialise real estate into liquid asset form. Vermeir and Heiremans subsequently considered the possibility of creating AHI as a financial vehicle that uses their art house as the underlying asset.

ART HOUSE INDEX INSTALLATION consists of different elements that can be compilated in different ways for specific presentations. The different elements consist of:

A frontier investment opportunity (4'), a short publicity video visualising the art house unfolding as many different virtual houses, each with a view over different global skylines, all of them related to places in the world where the artists have produced or presented their work. http://vimeo.com/77031534

A conversation with Frank Goodman (39'), a video showing an interview with a financial adviser on the creation of Art House Index http://vimeo.com/109586203

Art House Index (webpage) http://ahi.in-residence.be/chart.php

A leaflet with the printed interview with Frank Goodman

Furniture elements

The presentation of Art House Index-Installation took place at A Glass Darkly, a group exhibition curated by Nav Haq at Stroom Den Haag (September 2014)

Art House Index installation, 2014.

Vermeir & Heiremans in collaboration with Justin Bennett, Amir Borenstein, Salome Schmuki, Werner Van Steen.

A production of Limited Editions vzw, executive producer: Jubilee vzw, supported by the Flemish Community. Coproduction: Stroom Den Haag