Lightscape is the anchor of Aitken\u2019s immersive new exhibition at The Shed in New York, a seven-channel film installation with resounding score that will be activated by live performances over the course of the show\u2019s run. He likens the work to a planet whose different aspects represent an array of media, from music and film to installation and performance. \u201cIt\u2019s really looking at the idea that art can be completely de-material, and art can be any vessel \u2013 it can flow freely through any media, whether it\u2019s a movie or sculptures or performances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film itself, which he plans to release as a feature later this year, is a series of interconnecting, Altman-esque vignettes following different characters \u2013 played, among others, by Natasha Lyonne and Beck \u2013 as they navigate the different textures of our destabilising present. Airplane trails arc overhead, machines do their work in eerie synchronicity, and lights signal and shift in the urban darkness. Among these slices of alienation and velocity, a gardener manicuring the grounds of a Richard Neutra house finds himself in a teeming forest with giant, knotted roots like those of a prehistoric jungle. It\u2019s an arresting moment taking us out of the atomised \u2018now\u2019 and into deep time, a sensation which the exhibition at The Shed is similarly intended to provoke. <\/p>\n
Here, the indefatigable artist discusses this hypnotic artwork, his instinct for collaboration, and a new project he is forging out of the debris of the 2025 Los Angeles fires.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laura Allsop: How will the different elements of the work come together at The Shed?\u00a0<\/p>\n Doug Aitken: The installation in New York will be seven screens and they\u2019re very architectural. You walk into this dark space and find yourself surrounded by these different screens, almost like billboards or signage that are moving. You can walk into the centre of the space, sit or lie down or\u00a0kind of lose yourself. I wanted to create an environment where the artwork would dissolve and perform with the viewer. It\u2019s a very non-linear story, there\u2019s multiple characters that you come back to over and over but it\u2019s not a traditional structure driven by dialogue or drama. It\u2019s much more of a graphic narrative, propelled on the one hand by music and sound and patterns of repetition, and on the other, by diverse individuals in completely separate places but drawn together to create this larger story. So you have everything from a mechanised robotics factory to a remote, arid desert-scape with a migrant miner moving through space in his truck. It\u2019s these really radically diverse stories that somehow intertwine and create a more complex portrait of who we are now and how we\u2019re moving. I see Lightscape as a film choreography \u2013 we\u2019re using moving images, but we\u2019re also looking at it almost like dance. The way that the screens play off each other, there\u2019s cause and effect moments where the entire exhibition kind of folds open like a lotus blossom or it contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n LA: The title, like all of your titles, is very evocative, and I wondered what the word Lightscape means to you?\u00a0<\/p>\n DA: I think Lightscape came to me when I was thinking about how to describe the modern landscape. We\u2019re living in this fascinating moment in time where the lines between fiction and nonfiction are blurred, the idea of the landscape is a question. We look outside our window and it\u2019s a built landscape: the trees have been planted by humans, the streets are paved, the sky is sliced with planes crossing, and the invisible signals of connectivity and electricity are passing through us as we speak. This is a very different idea of a traditional landscape, but a geological landscape, a sense of deep time and deep ecology. How do we describe this, and how do we define it? Because I think it\u2019s important that we don\u2019t just take this for granted and just assume that this condition is normal [laughs].\u00a0<\/p>\n LA: Your work is very collaborative. Could you tell me about the collaborations on Lightscape and what they brought to the project?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n DA: I love it when an artwork can create a huge dinner table, invite other people to create and share and partake. I also love improvisation. So much of what we see around us is so constructed, so contrived, and I like the idea that when you make a work, there\u2019s room for spontaneity. With Natasha Lyonne, we\u2019ve always wanted to do something, and when this project surfaced, I had an idea for a character but we really just made up the character in situ. Bryn [Mooser], who is her ex-lover, is part of the scene, and we thought about this woman who\u2019s in a luxury apartment hotel, looking out, and the glass window is separating her from life. It\u2019s almost like a pleasure prison that she can\u2019t break, and she\u2019s looking out at the world around her at the circulation, the variety, the diversity, but only through the lens of a voyeur. That was something where we got a room and just started improvising. A lot of the scenes were like that. The location was the script, but then what happened in it was really made up on the spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n LA: The horizon is very prominent in the film, and you\u2019ve talked before of the horizon symbolising what lies ahead. It\u2019s an acutely anxious time \u2013 what do you feel about the future?\u00a0<\/p>\n DA: I remember I asked Paolo Soleri, the architect \u2013 he was in his 90s \u2013 \u201cwhat\u2019s your idea of the future?\u201d And he just looked at me and said, \u201cYou can\u2019t ask that question.\u201d He said the future is just a conjuncture, we have no idea \u2013\u00a0all we have is the present and we have to just focus on that. On the one hand, we need to have visions for where we can go, personally or as a society, but on the other hand, we also have this power of presence and the present, and that\u2019s something that we can\u2019t lose track of. These are times which are just incredibly challenging, politically, socially. How do we navigate this? But I think in some ways, it does go back to creativity and culture. That is a space that we need to hold on to, and it\u2019s more valuable than ever, because it\u2019s the opposition of that white noise and anxiety that\u2019s outside of our purview and our control.<\/p>\n<\/a>
![\"2.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/474491.jpg\")
Still from Lightscape\u00a9 Doug Aitken<\/p>\n<\/a>
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Performance by Suzanne Ciani at LightscapeCourtesy of the exhibition<\/p>\n
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Still from Lightscape\u00a9 Doug Aitken<\/p>\n