Image 1: Doug Aitken, Sleepwalkers, 2007. Seven-channel outdoor video installation with digital video players, dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.Doug Aitken is an American artist born in 1968. His artworks reflect contemporary life through hypnotic, hyperreal installations.
One of his largest installations titled Sleepwalkers, involved eight gigantic moving images that were projected onto various facades of The Museum of Modern Art in New York[1]. The 2007 installation follows the private journeys of five nocturnal New York inhabitants who live in solitude and separation, however still exist in loose synchronicity. The narrative opens as the sun sets and the characters wake and begin their mundane daily rituals. Their activities eventually progress to become extremely bizarre and fictional, removing them from any reality.
One of his largest installations titled Sleepwalkers, involved eight gigantic moving images that were projected onto various facades of The Museum of Modern Art in New York[1]. The 2007 installation follows the private journeys of five nocturnal New York inhabitants who live in solitude and separation, however still exist in loose synchronicity. The narrative opens as the sun sets and the characters wake and begin their mundane daily rituals. Their activities eventually progress to become extremely bizarre and fictional, removing them from any reality.
Image 2: Doug Aitken, Sleepwalkers, 2007. Seven-channel outdoor video installation with digital video players, dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Eleanor Heartney refers to the postmodern narrative as “subtly signaling the viewer that the stories they tell may be biased, incomplete, or completely fictional”[2]. Each aspect of Sleepwalkers has a degree of concealment, making it difficult for the audience to believe the characters’ lives are portrayed truthfully.
French literary critic Roland Barthes, mentioned by Heartney, explored the idea that any lucidity that emerges from a work isn’t due to the creator but the audience who engage and activate the work. So as Sleepwalkers progresses, becoming more abstract and fictional, the artist is hinting that the artwork has a deeper intention than to document these bizarre character’s lives, however that deeper meaning is for the viewer to determine.
Image 3: Doug Aitken, Into the Sun, 1999. Colour Film transferred to 4 channel digital video installation, sound and architectural environment, 7min cycle.Victoria Miro Gallery, London.One of Aitken’s earlier works Into the sun began when Aitken traveled to Mambai, India and photographed various aspects of the Indian Film industry[3]. The end product was a chaotic montage of thousands of Bollywood film stills, photographs of Bollywood films sets and the Indian actors. The photographs shot in sequence shift pace sometimes at a dizzying rate. This paired with a disjointed soundtrack of production noise, acts as a narrative that embodies fast-paced Indian culture. The installation is a comment on the mass-proliferation of the moving image in Bollywood. Aitken’s use of found footage brings into play the idea of authorship and originality. However Aitken brings a new life and cadence to these films and the culture they are produced in. He creates this work to move with such anarchy and unrestrained speed that it feels inevitable it will implode.
Heartney notes how film art often “withholds the emotional satisfaction audiences..come to expect..from the movies”[4]. Both Into the sun and Sleepwalkers have no beginning and no end. Instead his artworks exemplify the rebirth of narrative art as a disjointed sequence of familiar images that generate an intense physiological charge, that the viewers are inevitably drawn to.
[1] Doug Aitken et al., Doug Aitken : Sleepwalkers (New York: Museum of Modern Art in association with Creative Time, 2007), 9.
[2] Eleanor Heartney, Art & Today (London: Phaidon, 2008), 122.
[3] Daniel Birnbaum et al., Doug Aitken, (London ; New York: Phaidon, 2001), 67.
Aitken, Doug, Emily Hall, Museum of Modern Art (New York N.Y.), and Creative Time Inc. Doug Aitken : Sleepwalkers. New York: Museum of Modern Art in association with Creative Time, 2007.
Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. London: Phaidon, 2008.
Birnbaum, Daniel, Amy Sharp, Jörg Heiser, and Doug Aitken. Doug Aitken. London ; New York: Phaidon, 2001.
Images:
Image 1&2: Aitken, Doug. Sleepwalkers, 2007. Seven-channel outdoor video installation with digital video players, dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Reproduced by Fredrick Charles, Doug Aitken : Sleepwalkers (New York: Museum of Modern Art in association with Creative Time, Doug Aitken, Emily Hall, 2007.), 6-15.
Image 3: Aitken, Doug. Into the Sun, 1999. Colour Film transferred to 4 channel digital video installation, sound and architectural environment, 7min cycle.Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Reproduced by Pacific Film Archive, Doug Aitken (London ; New York: Phaidon, 2001.),16-18.
Image 3: Aitken, Doug. Into the Sun, 1999. Colour Film transferred to 4 channel digital video installation, sound and architectural environment, 7min cycle.Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Reproduced by Pacific Film Archive, Doug Aitken (London ; New York: Phaidon, 2001.),16-18.
1 comment:
Ahhh - Doug Aitken... He truly has his finger on the MTV generational pulse.
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