selected work

selected work

house

1-6.  House, 2010. Film stills.

7-8.  House, 2010.  Production stills.

9-11. House, 2010. Installation views, Regen Projects, Los Angeles

selected work

http://www.doug-aitken-arles.com/


altered earth | installation | altered earth website | altered earth app

http://www.doug-aitken-arles.com/ Artist Doug Aitken's multi-screen installation, Altered Earth, is a moving-image earthwork installed in La Grande Halle for the Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France in 2012. This film documents a one-time musical "Happening" staged inside Aitken's Altered Earth installation in collaboration with Terry Riley. Riley's improvisation took place in 4 separate musical parts within the art installation. This film documents 4 minutes of Riley's 50 minute performance.

altered earth | happening

selected work

http://www.dougaitkenworkshop.com/ February 1 - March 23 2013 Doug Aitken 100 YRS Central to Doug Aitken's "100 YRS" exhibition is a new "Sonic Fountain," in which water drips from 5 rods suspended from the ceiling, falling into a concrete crater dug out of the gallery floor. The flow of water itself is controlled so as to create specific rhythmic patterns that will morph, collapse and overlap in shifting combinations of speed and volume, lending the physical phenomenon the variable symphonic structure of song. The water itself appears milky white, as if imbued and chemically altered by its aural properties, a basic substance turned supernatural. The amplified sound of droplets conjures the arrhythmia of breathing, and along with the pool's primordial glow, the fountain creates its own sonic system of tracking time. Behind a cavernous opening carved into the gallery's west wall is "Sunset (black)," a sculptural work that resembles cast lava rock in texture and spells out the word SUNSET as it glows from behind, its letters forming a relic of the entropy and displacement inherent in the literal idea of a sunset. Viewed from and obscured behind a hole in the wall, the sculpture appears as cosmic debris, as if pulled from a parallel world where a sunset is only an idea, obfuscated by detritus of the age of post-everything, a reductionist standpoint between the modes of pop and minimalism, its glow fading into the next realm. Also on view is the mirrored sculpture "MORE (shattered pour)". Like a time-piece, the work creates a kaleidoscope of reflections of all that surrounds it. As if it were a fragmented film, "MORE (shattered pour)" creates a literal manifestation of the present and aspirational escapism, which cannot be viewed without glimpsing a piece of one's self within the work's reflections. Another refraction of time is glimpsed through "Fountain (Earth Fountain)", created from plexiglas letters spelling the word "ART", through which a slurry of moist dirt is pumped, physical earth perpetually redoubling and standing in for itself. The word ART itself subverts the entropy of time, creating a holding pattern that organic matter cannot escape from. The flickering lightbox "not enough time in the day" completes the communicative supercurrent of shimmering malaise, its letters overlapping as if seen inebriated, somehow both more profound and less understandable. The work creates a cycle that is both hypnotic and inescapable.

100 yrs | part 1

http://www.dougaitkenworkshop.com/ February 1 - March 23 2013 Doug Aitken 100 YRS Central to Doug Aitken's "100 YRS" exhibition is a new "Sonic Fountain," in which water drips from 5 rods suspended from the ceiling, falling into a concrete crater dug out of the gallery floor. The flow of water itself is controlled so as to create specific rhythmic patterns that will morph, collapse and overlap in shifting combinations of speed and volume, lending the physical phenomenon the variable symphonic structure of song. The water itself appears milky white, as if imbued and chemically altered by its aural properties, a basic substance turned supernatural. The amplified sound of droplets conjures the arrhythmia of breathing, and along with the pool's primordial glow, the fountain creates its own sonic system of tracking time. Behind a cavernous opening carved into the gallery's west wall is "Sunset (black)," a sculptural work that resembles cast lava rock in texture and spells out the word SUNSET as it glows from behind, its letters forming a relic of the entropy and displacement inherent in the literal idea of a sunset. Viewed from and obscured behind a hole in the wall, the sculpture appears as cosmic debris, as if pulled from a parallel world where a sunset is only an idea, obfuscated by detritus of the age of post-everything, a reductionist standpoint between the modes of pop and minimalism, its glow fading into the next realm. Also on view is the mirrored sculpture "MORE (shattered pour)". Like a time-piece, the work creates a kaleidoscope of reflections of all that surrounds it. As if it were a fragmented film, "MORE (shattered pour)" creates a literal manifestation of the present and aspirational escapism, which cannot be viewed without glimpsing a piece of one's self within the work's reflections. Another refraction of time is glimpsed through "Fountain (Earth Fountain)", created from plexiglas letters spelling the word "ART", through which a slurry of moist dirt is pumped, physical earth perpetually redoubling and standing in for itself. The word ART itself subverts the entropy of time, creating a holding pattern that organic matter cannot escape from. The flickering lightbox "not enough time in the day" completes the communicative supercurrent of shimmering malaise, its letters overlapping as if seen inebriated, somehow both more profound and less understandable. The work creates a cycle that is both hypnotic and inescapable.

100 yrs | part 2

http://www.dougaitkenworkshop.com/

sonic fountain

selected work

http://www.mirrorseattle.org/ MIRROR is an urban earthwork. A downtown museum that changes in real time, responding to the activity around it. A living kaleidoscope, it is a dynamic representation of the constantly changing environments that make up Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of hours of footage, surfaces, locations and landscapes, reduced to their essence, create a living museum exterior. The continual mapping of the landscape feeds into the building. Weather information, pedestrian traffic, atmospheric conditions, and more trigger and direct the moving images in unexpected ways. Like choreography with no music, the images are left to define the composition and patterns today, tomorrow and in to the future.

mirror | installation | mirrorseattle.org

http://www.mirrorseattle.org/

mirror | happening

selected work

station to station | trailer

station to station | nomadic light sculpture

LANDSCAPE SIGNS (sign happening)

station to station | sign happening

selected work

Doug Aitken's MODERN SOUL is a live performance of synchronized skywriting and percussion. Part of Nuit Blanche, Monaco curated by Jorg Heiser.

modern soul

selected work

Text Sculptures:

  1.  YOU/YOU, 2012. High density foam, wood and mirror.
  2.  Sex, 2010. Living word. Clear PETG, white acrylic, moss, driftwood,various plants. 30 x 68 inches.
  3.  Free, 2009. LED lit lightbox. 48 x 157 x 7 7/8 inches.
  4.  MOVIE, 2012. High density foam, wood and mirror.
  5.  I Think Very Deeply, 2013. Hand carved foam, acrylic letters and hand silk-screened acrylic. 96 x 69 x 6 inches.
  6.  Vulnerable, 2008. LED lit lightbox. 28 x 216 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches.
  7.  Star, 2008. LED lit lightbox. 45 x 119 inches x 10 inches.
  8.  Yes, 2010.  LED lit lightbox. 50 x 120 inches.
  9.  Fountain (earth fountain), 2012. Plexiglas, steel, pumping system, colored methyl cellulose, lava stones. 53 7/8 x 78 x 3/8 x 36 inches

selected work

MIRAGE is a site-specific installation set in the Southern California desert. Utilizing the form of a ranch-style suburban American house, the sculpture is composed of reflective mirrored surfaces. MIRAGE distills the recognizable and repetitious suburban home into the essence of its lines, reflecting and disappearing into the vast western landscape.