Doug Aitken’s twenty-four-minute video migration (empire) is a poetic allegory of modernity and its effects from the perspective of undomesticated animals improbably placed in contemporary human environments. A horse, two peacocks, a sprightly fox, and a lumbering bison are among the dozen species of wild animals temporarily confined in that most banal of modern American spaces: the nondescript, endlessly repeated motel room. Framed by images of industrial extraction and the circulation of natural resources for human ends, the nonhuman protagonists of Aitken’s video offer a quietly jarring critique of capitalism’s expropriation of nature and the alienating infrastructure and transiency such processes produce. Aitken, one of the most prominent video artists working today, creates cinematic works that reflect poignantly on the modern world. In migration (empire), he underscores the inherent artifice of contemporary life through a collision with creatures that exist outside human experience and norms.
The work will be on display at the Lewis Arts Complex, North Lawn.
Hours on view
August 17–September 17: 7–10 p.m.
September 18–October 22: 6–10 p.m.
October 23–December 10: 4:30–10 p.m.
