Doug Aitken Feature Film ‘Lightscape’ to Debut in November
Doug Aitken, Lighstcape (2024) (still). Video. © Doug Aitken Workshop.
A new film by Doug Aitken will screen for the first time at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on 16 November.
Aitken is the American artist best known for his cross-country happening Station to Station (2013), which utilised a nine-carriage train covered in LED screens, and making the mirrored house Mirage for Desert X in 2017.
His feature-length film Lightscape (2024) is an ode to California and its future. Video of its people, animals, deserts, factories, highways, shop signs, and much more are augmented with minimalist music compositions, choral singing, and dance.
‘We wanted to make this fast-moving hallucinatory vision of the modern world,’ Aitken said in a behind-the-scenes interview. ’Lightscape explores the idea of the future—where we are now and where we could be going.’
‘While we were developing this project I was thinking about different ecologies both within our landscape and within our culture,’ he said. ‘We’d find people off the street, we’d find friends, and bring them into this larger story that we were creating. The work had incredible energy of improvisation, moving from place to place.’
The premiere of Lightscape is part of the event PST Art: Art & Science Collide and the LA Phil’s 12-hour festival Noon to Midnight: Field Recordings.
After making its debut, Lightscape will be shown as a multi-screen installation at the Marciano Art Foundation from 17 December 2024 through 15 March 2025. —[O]
Main image: Doug Aitken, Lighstcape (2024) (still). Video. © Doug Aitken Workshop.
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