Visit the work in progress site.

"Downtown Hotel Envy" is an installation of sculpture and live video which
casts two Downtown Los Angeles Hotels, The Westin Bonaventure and the
Downtown Standard Hotel, into roles as emotionalized models. I read that
the Bonaventure was in the "top 10 most photographed buildings in the
world". Perhaps they additionally count each frame of the movies that the
building has appeared. In any event, I recognized the Bonaventure as a
deliberate landmark that maybe has passed its photogenic prime since
Frederic Jameson rode its elevators. I asked, what would the Bonaventura,
as a hotel, most want to photograph. I found my answer to be another
downtown hotel; the object of envy beyond mere photogenesis: the somewhat
concealed rooftop of the Standard Hotel. I wanted to make an impression of
the Bonaventure as a sleek futuristic bauble crinkled into a tenous
posture of paranoic envy. The exterior of the actual Standard Hotel by
comparison is austere and municipal, simple flanks of steel and marble, a
former bank. Yet it flaunts its exteriority in contrast with its simple
rooftop nightspot/bar. I created a sculpture of a hybrid coin-viewer, a
scopophilic instrument of the bonaventure hotel, which lofts over the
voids of imaginary freeways and intersections below to furtively inspect
the goings-on of the Standard rooftop. I wanted to fictionalize a scenario
as much as model buildings as actors and put them onto an interactive
stage. I wanted to provide something more playful than to project bleak
feelings about downtown LA's architectural life, nor emphasize the
disorientation Jameson may have suggested. I would like present another
suggestive reality of "envy".

Jim Ovelmen

Work in Progress: Downtown Hotel Envy