Installation at the island: FRONTIER by Doug Aitken
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A) The Installation B) Illustrative report C) Images |
 D) Credits E) Biographies F) Thanks and Copyright |
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| A) THE INSTALLATION Frontier is a temporary installation realized at the Tiber Island by Doug Aitken in collaboration with the Luca Peralta Studio. The work is conceived as an ideal Energy Room: the installation located at the Tiber Island in Rome actually includes a series of video and images visible at 360°, either from the top or from the inside and the outside of the architectural space accessible by the visitors. The video has been shot in Rome, Los Angeles, Israel and South Africa and featured by the American painter Ed Ruschi. The work of Doug Aitken has been exposed at the Tiber Island from October 22nd to November 23rd 2009 and then donated to the MACRO Museum in Rome to be included in the permanent collections of the museum.  Page
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B) ILLUSTRATIVE REPORT The work consists of an artistic multimedia installation, temporary and fully reversible, inaugurated on October 22nd 2009 and to be exposed throughout about one month. It is an “open sky room” rectangular shaped, built at the West end of the Tiber Island and consisting of 4 wide walls about 5 mt high, 1 mt thick and respectively 25,6 mt and 13.8 mt long, on which images in sequence and sort films are screened. The structure is completely built of wood and designed to be easily assembled and disassembled (in case of flood) and consists of reticular frames, 5 mt high and 1 mt wide, located perpendicularly to the walls of the "room" and at 1.22 mt distance one from the other. Such frames are connected, either internally and externally, by secondary structural components and by ending panels of marine multilayer wood with typical dimensions 2.5 by 1.22 mt. The continuity of the structure is interrupted by openings of different dimensions, some real windows which positions are apparently casual, that permit the images screened inside to be visible at outside too. The internal walls are properly coated in order to guarantee an excellent visual return of the screened images, while the external ones are plastered, smoothed and light color painted. Everything is linked up to the ground by means of an indented plinth that permits to visually tolerate the irregularities of the existing flooring and the slope for the rain flowing. Between the internal and external wall surfaces, inside the "walls thickness" itself, respectively in the upper and lower part, are located the projectors and the loudspeakers together with some large water tanks. The last ones are properly sized and designed in order to ballasting the structure to the ground in a fully reversible way and prevent the overturn of the wide walls. The installation is conceived to be used going inside through two wide openings located in the smaller sides or walking at the outside watching the images across the windows or even from various points of view of the context. An almost baroque and ephemeral concept of public space, theatre of events, that allows several points of view to watch and enjoy the urban sight. Find herebelow the description of the artist and author of the work that relates the experience he wants to propose to the users and to the town: “The proposed artistic installation is a multimedia one located in the West end of the Tiber island. It is a standalone architectural structure that, in the evenings, lights up with moving images that can be seen from several privileged points of view both from inside and outside. You can imagine to walk on the Fabricius bridge, at the twilight. When you cross the bridge, you note a slow and animated light flow given out from a wide white structure, with a strictly modern and minimal design. A sort of building rectangular shaped that looks in full contrast with the ancient organic town all around it. When you go closer and focus on it you realize that the surrealistic and white structure is really bright, shining from the inside. Some rectangular and clean figures, that look as windows, have been removed from the austere structure and filled with moving images. You will realize that the roof is missing and that gigantic images can be distinguished inside, while you approach coming from some privileged locations. The structure, that looks modern outside, is virtually alive inside: short films, images, stories, sequences come out with unforeseeable energy. What you see attracts you and makes you approaching. The structure comes out from the island. The images get synchronizing and playing around a constellation of screens, images that can be viewed also from the outside through the windows, images that act as a fragmented but consistent story. When you enter the structure you are plunged in the synchronized images that are playing together at the inside, that bring you into the installation itself and inside an unique experience. Once you are inside, the windows are not more visible and you are completely absorbed by the light of the images that fully cover the walls and move around you under an open and nocturnal sky. Doug Aitken, Rome 2009". Page
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C) IMAGES
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E) BIOGRAPHIES Doug Aitken Awarded with the Gold Lion at Biennale of Venice in 1999, Doug Aitken (Ridondo Beach California, USA, 1968) is internationally famous for his works of lights, sounds and images, as the video projection Sleepwalkers which covered the whole façade of the MoMA in 2007. Aitken took part to group and one-man exhibitions in the most prestigious institutions worldwide and his works have been exhibited, among others, in the MoMA in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée D’art Moderne in Paris. Doug Aitken lives and works in Los Angeles. Luca Peralta (doct.ing., MarchAA, ARB) Luca Peralta, engineer and architect, collaborated and collaborates with important international design offices, among which the most important are Massimiliano Fuksas Architetto, Norman Foster and Partners, Giorgio Armani Retails, Zaha Hadid Architects, Prada Retails. Since 2003 he directs the “Luca Peralta Studio – design & consulting” which main offices are in Rome, specialized in the design and coordination of fashion and design stores, public buildings and private complexes, “urban design” and landscape architecture, with particular reference to the experimentation, research and use of eco-sustainable technologies. Since 2004 he is a contract teacher at the Penn State University branch in Rome, Landscape Architecture dept, where he teaches Urban Design. e-mail contact: info@lucaperalta.com - Website: www.lucaperalta.com Page
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F) THANKS AND COPYRIGHT --- Texts (original Italian texts) and pictures are published by courtesy and on permission of Luca Peralta which keeps the Copyright ©. --- English translation of texts by Bruno Leoni ©. Page
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