“I am fascinated by the indecisive moment and the peripheral view,” observes American artist Doug Aitken. His new film, Station to Station: 10 Happenings – 4000 Miles – Atlantic to Pacific brilliantly illustrates this philosophy. Comprised of 62 one-minute films, Station to Station: 10 Happenings documents “Station To Station”, a series of art happenings that began in 2013 when Aitken set aboard a train he designed as a kinetic light sculpture, traveling across the United States over a period of 24 days. The documentary, like the art series, is a high speed trip across the contemporary American landscape, beautifully fusing an eclectic mix of artists, musicians, writers, places, and perspectives into a work of art that is as original as it is inspiring.
From New York to San Francisco, with ten stops along the way, “Station To Station” is a flurry of site-specific happenings, each a unique work in its own right. The film, like the happenings, features appearances by musicians including Beck, Jackson Browne, Thurston Moore, Patti Smith, Mavis Staples, Cornbread Harris, Cat Power, and Giorgio Moroder; visual artists William Eggleston, Ed Ruscha, Stephen Shore, and Lawrence Weiner; and writers including Gary Indiana and Sasha Frere-Jones, among others.
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The film, currently available on iTunes, includes profiles, intimate moments on the train, conversations, and performances at the happenings, including Ed Ruscha describing the discoveries to be made in the American landscape; Beck performing with a gospel choir in the Mojave desert; and Jackson Browne reflecting on the influence of the railroad in his music. Edited together, the film embodies the way life feels today, at once fractured and whole. It weaves together intense sensations of sight, sound, and motion into an incredible tableau of the creation of art, and how we experience it.
Here’s “Nomadic Light Sculpture,”an exclusive segment from the film:
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In a statement about the project, Aitken observes, “This is a fast moving cultural journey, a constant search over the new horizons of our changing culture. Grounded in some basic questions—Who are we? Where are we going? And, at this moment, how can we express ourselves?—our intention is to create a modern cultural manifesto. For a short time, the most interesting place in the country will be a moving target.”
As a filmmaker, Aitken consistently defies definition of genre, preferring to explore the aspects of the medium itself, changing our expectations and redefining the known. Through his art, Aitken brings us into a world where time, space, and memory are fluid concepts, forever open to new possibilities. With Station to Station, Aitken explores the plasticity of film and the way in which it can record impressions and expressions of life as it passes you by, and is then later re-experienced and re-examined as a work of thought. “Station to Station” reminds us that art is within our power to create.
STS – Feature Film Trailer from Doug Aitken Workshop on Vimeo.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
