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5/11/2013

Doug Aitken

Nam June Paik Art Center, Gyeonggi-do

Doug Aitken: Electric Earth

In Doug Aitken’s media world, ceaseless movements are recreated as if things float in the air or in the water. Thus, his main topics include travels, crossing of a specific space, or walks in the city. Unexpected situations occurring in the spaces become a main factor that composes the narratives of such films while people as well as environments constantly act and move. His media work is a means of resistance against the unstoppable or sometimes irreversible movements as though the world is destined to move continually by the invisible force. So he chooses a strategy to deconstruct the linear flow of narrative of his films and videos. Thereby a new kind of temporality is acquired in the way that plural screens are connected non-simultaneously or displayed by means of time difference and delay.

Aitken is a media installation artist, who puts emphasis on the reception of visual images as well as their structure more than any other artist of his generation introducing cinema into contemporary fine arts. Accordingly, an installation of multi-channel video projections in a complex architectural space is the key to his work. At times, audiences are led to go through very unique spatial and temporal experiences that general movie theaters don’t offer them, while moving around in a maze-like space.

Considered as a prototype of Aitken’s video art, is an artwork that has still been on exhibit in the world’s major museums and galleries since its first production for the 1999 Venice Biennale. Ali Johnson, the protagonist of the film, is a famous breakdancer of that time. Johnson shares the pulse and rhythms with the desolate urban environments whilst crossing the unknown cities where dreams and reality intersect, together with sound control. A vacant ground near the airport, a car wash, supermarket parking lot, and an automatic laundry provide a background for different sequences. These places are edited like a ‘seamless patchwork’ employing the radars of the airport, sharp diagonal street lights, rotating security cameras, and glaring brake lights as a link.

In this 8-
projection installation, videos are played in 4 different rooms: the first and last room with one video each and the two rooms in the middle with 3 videos respectively. Immersed in his videos inside these small rooms, audiences physically have a special experience that is extended in time and space. A number of areas in the room offer a combination of the sequences of different images and sounds. In the mean time, the audience, who follows the suggested flow in there, comes to participate in a kind of three-dimensional ‘montage’ work involuntarily.

Press contact:
T +82 31 201 8559 / F +82 31 201 8530 press@njpartcenter.kr

Opening Wednesday, Nov.6, 2013 at 5:00p.m.
Artist Talk at 3pm

Nam June Paik Art Center
Paiknamjune-ro 10 Sanggal-dong Giheung-gu, Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do 446-905 Korea
Opening Hours
Mon.-Sun.: 10am-8pm
Closed on: every 2nd & 4th Monday of the month.
Last admission is one hour before closing.
Admission
Adults: 4,000 won
Students: 2,000 won
Under 6: Free
Over 66: Free
Disabled Person: Free
50% discount for inhabitants of Gyeonggi Province and groups of 20 or more adults (Excluding students),

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