Doug Aitken

Doug Aitken challenges the limits of art by examining modern life’s complexity, hyper-connectivity, and the blending of humanity, technology and the environment. Lightscape is a futuristic fever-dream song cycle blending the human voice with kinetic electronic soundscapes. These mysterious choral compositions expand from a singular voice to a rich kaleidoscopic chorale of over 50 singers. Minimalist repetition of simple language echoes and abstracts. Voices loop and disintegrate over synthetic textural arrangements and driving electronic pulses, inhabiting a hallucinatory space that melds electronica with the vulnerability of the human voice. Lightscape explores how we navigate an ever-accelerating world, asking: who are we and where are we going? The project started with improvisatory recording workshops between Aitken and The Los Angeles Master Chorale, collaborating with conductor Grant Gershon. Aitken worked with producers Austin Meredith and Rodaidh McDonald to collage this material into multidimensional arrangements. The songs were the catalyst for Aitken’s Lightscape feature film and multiscreen video installation created with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This artwork is a modern mythology propelled by music, film, and architecture, chronicling the search for individuality in a world of continuous transformation.