Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours) forms Chapter 9 of Lawrence Lek’s Bonus Levels (2013-2016), a series of site-specific video games based on alternate versions of real places. Conceived as a virtual novel, Lek uses simulation as a medium to assemble collages of objects and places drawn from reality. The project is usually presented as a double-screen installation with video game and narrative walkthrough video displayed side-by-side.
Unreal Estate imagines a future in which the Royal Academy of Arts in London has been sold to a Chinese billionaire as a luxury private mansion. Set against the capital’s housing crisis, the project presents a critical look at unrestricted high-end property development. Lek explores the language of high-end property branding and the complex relationship between luxury, desire, and excess. The walkthrough video is set to a voiceover about how to hire and fire an ‘army of household servants’, translated into Mandarin from the Russian edition of the high-society Tatler magazine.
The Royal Academy is itself on a rental contract from the government, and this fact shows the precarious status of even the nation’s oldest and most revered art establishment. In Lek’s simulation, a major cultural institution can become commercial real estate. Even the heritage architecture and art collections of the Royal Academy are marketed as private property. The courtyard has a Jeff Koons bunny; the private galleries are covered in wallpaper by Yayoi Kusama; grand receptions are converted into double-height bedrooms; security is tight with laser alarms, CCTV, and encrypted wireless networks. Helicopters never stop hovering over the estate.
