Doug Aitken: Song 1

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[All photos by John Hill]

Thanks to the AIA, Doug Aitken's Song 1 installation on the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. was extended to May 20 for conventioneers and others interested in the filmic facade.The multimedia piece is similar to, but more architecturally engaging than his 2007 Sleepwalkers at MoMA. The song of the title is "I Only Have Eyes for You," a doo-wop number written in 1934. The song gets stuck in the head, even though Aitken cuts the song up across the installation's 35 minutes, morphing it with electronic music, ambient noise, and other sounds. The piece is as much an aural accomplishment as a visual one. Photos from my visit are below, and at bottom is a clip of Song 1 made by the artist.

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