Doug Aitken's New Installation on D.C.'s Hirshorn Museum
Mar 15, 2012
Washington D.C.'s circular Hirshorn Museum calls to mind a slide carousel, a UFO, a big, white donut, or, according to Ada Louis Huxtable, "a bomb shelter and penitentiary." All architectural criticism aside, it provides the perfect, blank slate for a film projection, and from March 22 - May 13 it will be the site for Doug Aitken's new 360-degree audiovisual installation, "Song 1."
Eleven projectors will run from sunset to midnight, playing what will appear to be a singular wraparound image set to a mash-up of "I Only Have Eyes For You," performed by various artists like Beck and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. The imagery is set to a slow, 60-beats-per-minute rhythm and will occasionally make the museum appear to lift off the ground.
You might have seen "Sleepwalkers," Aitken's large-scale, 2007 projection at MoMA, starring Donald Sutherland and Tilda Swinton. It was massive, covering many of the museum's exterior walls, but "Song 1" will mark the very first time Aitken has created a circular projection, forcing viewers to walk around the building to see it in its entirety.
Kerry Brougher, the Hirshorns' deputy director and chief curator points out the film editing challenges involved in a project like this.
“It’s creating a whole new set of issues and challenges, in terms of how you edit a film and create a montage. There are all kind of vocabularies that have to be reinvented to...articulate a film on a circular surface this way.”
This might be the only time The Mall will become something of a nighttime destination this year, and if you want to check it out D.C is only a three hour train ride away from New York.
Meanwhile, try and rival Aitken's epic-ness with one of check out one of 3rd Ward's multi-media and audiovisual classes.
-- Perrin Drumm
