Nam June Paik Art Center is delighted to announce a solo exhibition titled Electric Earth by Dough Aitken who won the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize. Having celebrated its 3rd anniversary in 2012, Nam June Paik Art Center Prize has reorganized the existing system and established a new tradition of awarding the prize and then holding a solo exhibition of the prize winner in the following year.

Doug Aitken is a media installation artist, who puts emphasis on the reception of visual images as well as their structure more than any other artist of his generation introducing film into contemporary fine arts. Especially, one of characteristics in his art world is research on the transition zone between different arts fields like novel, music and film. Also, as working on large-scale outdoor screening project, such as 'sleepwalker,' 'song1,' and 'altered earth,' he has received a great attention internationally. 

Accordingly, an installation of multi-channel video projections in a complex architectural space is the key to his work. At times, audiences are led to go through very unique spatial and temporal experiences that general movie theaters don't offer them, while moving around in a maze-like space. 

'Electric Earth' is such his original video art since it was firstly introduced at Venice Biennale in 1999. Ali Johnson, a main actor of the film, was a famous break dancer. As crossing unknown cities like a dream with speedy sound, Johnson shares beat and rhythm with surrounding environment in the trackless downtown. A vacant lot near the airport, car wash, parking lot in supermarket and manless laundry can be a background of different sequence. Such places are edited like 'remnants without a joint' using radar of the airpot, circulating CCTV or flashing brake as a connecting link.

Consisting of 8 screens, the work is played in four rooms. In a small room, the audience can have a visual spatially extended experience physically. Many spots in the room provides a mix of different image sequence and sound, and the audience moving in terms of implicit circulation system can join a sort of solid 'composite' work regardless of own intention.

*image (left)
Electric Earth, 1999
still cut 
© Doug Aitken