my takeaway is that this sculpture of isleton mediates the guard-agent’s movements in ways which work within patterns that only speculation could draw. he is in effect always on the clock, perched upon the third floor of “his” residence with weapons and binoculars and a television, always at rest but always in motion—not unlike the space he occupies. he is in a position of constant appraisal, appointed to manage potential vandals side-by-side with potential buyers, to codeswitch between custodian and spokesperson at a moment’s notice. most of all, he is stuck in many simultaneous temporalities: in the pre-collapse construction rush, in the post-collapse recession, in the perpetual present of capitalist ruin. but he is also profoundly unstuck, precariously positioned as both occupant and employee of a house that was never his, and presumably being tasked with the mission of displacing himself, should a buyer ever come along. the “house-ness” of the house prompts certain behaviors: he sleeps and eats in the house, and keeps his possessions there, and opens and closes the doors when it's time to say hello or goodbye. but the house is more perceivably an abstraction—a footnote in a likely-defaulted synthetic cdo—than it is a house. it is a materialization of speculation: a speculative sculpture, here made visible by its failure as an index of profit.