doug aikten

Doug Aitken is an artist from the LA area who focuses on visual mediums. He uses still framed pictures as an art form with several interesting shots. During his presentation he showed a shot of a diamond sea from an aerial view. This generated a sense of immensity, showing the vast span of the desert area. I also liked his picture of the ghost town in Africa. There seemed to be an intangible emptiness of the town. It showed a long street, with dirt roads, and boarded windows. Almost every aspect in the frame seemed to state the emptiness of the town. Aitken also used film in his art. He combined several different and somewhat disorienting scenes throughout the film. Several sequences had frames within the frame with different actions going on in each frame. Each frame had a different person in it. This system made it seem like each person was equated with a different frame. Overall though, I was incredibly confused by the film. I had trouble figuring out what it’s point was. Obviously, it was supposed to be an art form but I felt like nothing inside the film had any real point or message. As the viewer I was frustrated by the lack of a real story or point but it is possible that that was the intended point: to conflict with the standard system of film.