The Conceivable House departs from a novel by Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans (1921-1995) entitled The God Conceivable, Conceivable the God. In this labyrinthine literary construction, fragmented texts are not bound by a logical narrative but by word play and allusions, which are scattered like strings throughout the book. By deciding not to follow a direct narrative trajectory from A to B, the author's wires seem to be perpetually crossed. Hermans is perhaps attempting to demonstrate that it is not logic that determines the rationale of our existence, but our ability to form a mental representation of something: our ability to conceive, to form an idea in the mind.
Inspired by this narrative construction – a story without a predetermined destination – Deprez designed an interior using a similar strategy. Instead of beginning with a synthetized view, one that would normally be realized in maquettes or perspective drawings, Deprez constructed the interior space by collapsing six fragmented views (ceiling, floor and four walls). This not only freed him from the dominant bourgeois culture and its conventions, but also from all the attendant programmes based on comfort and functionality. Moreover, it enabled him to recalibrate the modernist compulsion towards the integrated architectural experience. The question that inevitably comes to mind, however, is this: is a conceived structure also an inhabitable structure?
A short documentary about The Conceivable House. The concept departs from a novel by Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans (1921-1995) entitled The God Conceivable, Conceivable the God. In this labyrinthine literary construction, fragmented texts are not bound by a logical narrative but by word play and allusions, which are scattered like strings throughout the book.
Inspired by this narrative construction – a story without a predetermined destination – Deprez designed an interior using a similar strategy.
Directed & edited by Dieter Decostere
DOP: Jens Van Ysacker, Jochen Decostere
Artist: Koen Deprez
Shot on Sony F55 with prime lenses
Music credits: Nick Cave, Agnes Obel, Leonard Cohen, Het Zesde Metaal
Translation & subtitless: Spotless
Shots from Stanley Kubrick's " A Space Odessey 2001" - copyright Warner Bros
