September 20, 2007
Doug Aitken returns to familiar territory
Doug Aitken, an artist whom I respect but who I feel peaked approximately five years ago—his video installations since interiors, 2002, have increased in scale and complexity and budget, but not necessarily in quality—has returned to his early stomping grounds: the music video. Pitchfork has posted a new video that Aitken directed for the LCD Soundsystem song "Someone Great." As music blog Stereogum put it in its gloss on the vid,
Award winning/MoMA-commissioned short film maker Doug Aitken shot the "experimental film" for the track, which captures James's use of the mundane (phones ringing, lovely weather, not-bitter coffee) to hit at something interpersonal 'n' bigger ("you're smaller than my wife imagined / surprised you were human") with similarly trivial-yet-somehow-heavy shadows 'n' strolls. James ain't in it, but we're thinking he's comfy with the amount of mug exposure he got in his spaceman getup / Peter Gabriel facepaint.
For more commentary, keep an eye on this Google Blogs search.