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chessbradley
14th November 2019

Is it Art? The house with too many sockets

In this week’s Is it Art?, Chess Bradley examines a house in Pinner with too many sockets
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Is it Art? The house with too many sockets
Photo: Andrew Pierce Pinner @RightMove

We’re rapidly approaching the end of the 2010s. What a decade, eh?

We entered the 2010s in the dark ages, when you couldn’t get 4G because it literally did not exist and are emerging on the other end enlightened, with a smart solution for literally everything (and I do mean literally)!

Who’d have thought, 10 years ago, that issues like having to move to turn on a light would be fixed by talking to a speaker, which then relays all your data personally to Jeff Bezos, who lies on his bed of millions of dollars, listening intently to what you had for tea.

But modern solutions have also caused modern problems. So many devices means so many chargers and only so many plug sockets. But a 1.5 million house in Pinner has a solution.

I like this house. I like imagining the story behind it.

Did someone’s Dad get fed up of hearing their kid’s fighting over sockets, and go completely and utterly mad? Has the person behind this ever heard of an extension cord? What’s their electricity bill like? What have those walls, with their incredible amount of sockets, seen?

I like to think this is a modern art piece. A sort of comment on modern times. Maybe we don’t realise how plugged in we are until we’re really confronted by it.

Or maybe someone is just that, truly as batty as they are pragmatic, trying desperately not to choose between plugging in their Amazon Echo and their television.

Verdict: Is it art? Truly in my soul, I want to say yes, so I’m saying yes.


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