Real State

Real state
by Asta Meldal Lynge
Text by Eleanor Ivory Weber
Design by Rory Gleeson with Asta Meldal Lynge
ISBN 978-0-9575223-6-7
216 x 279 mm, 128pp, softcover
This publication is supported using public funding by The National Lottery funds through Arts Council England

'Real state' is the first publication by artist Asta Meldal Lynge, a visual essay with text by Eleanor Ivory Weber that takes a critical stance towards the subjects of housing, urban development and image production. Employing video-stills, photographs, found images and 3d renderings, Lynge explores the social and political value of the image at different registers of indexicality, emphasising the fictions present in the (re)production of space.
Lynge highlights (and challenges) both the intensifying tendency of ‘image-building’ or the production of buildings as icons and the subsequent transformation of public space into an infinite extension of image surfaces.
Processes of layering, editing and retouching bring the stability of any image surface
into question and this destabilising approach is mirrored in Weber’s semi-fictionalised aphorisms.
The title Real state alludes to the conditions of contemporary systems, the power structures of governed entities and the business of real estate, while insinuating a difficult promise of something real or true to be revealed.

On the occasion of the exhibition ‘UPTOWN HIGH-RISE’ at Vermilion Sands Copenhagen, Real state was re-editioned with orange spray paint by Lynge.
Image 2: exhibition view ©Kevin Malcolm