House of Yesterday
2025, documentation of a on-site installation,
HD video, color, sound.
06:22
We encountered this house in the heart of Nebraska— built in the 1890s by homesteaders, now sits among miles of farmland, long abandoned as agricultural labor scaled upward in power and precision.
This piece is a reconstructed soundscape of working machineries within that relic. The growl of combustion engines and the buzz of steel implements crush against its crumbling roof and hollow walls.
The house becomes a vessel of memory and history, resonating with the noise of a future that has already moved on.
The audio is composed of machinery and factory field recordings, layered together and convoluted with the sounds of nature. Nature shapes the audio just as nature has shaped and weathered the house.
Concept and documentation: Jianqi Huang
Sound design: Wiliam Halas
Watch: https://vimeo.com/1178161114?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci