Doug Aitken Inspired

I really like Aitken’s layout of his New Oppositions work. It’s a completely new and interesting approach to landscape photography. A lot of landscape photography is taken in the same deadpan style with a large area and incredibly large prints etc, however Aitken takes it to a whole new level and puts the photos together in one image. His photos are in a cycle – it makes the viewer look at all four photos as one subject. This is similar to my work. I have four photographs and they all result into one statement – succession. However, I was thinking about presenting the four images in a row next to each other, keeping the horizon at the same height in every photo. This way it’s a different kind of cycle.

However, looking at Doug Aitken’s work, I decided to try and recreate his style with my photographs and I love the result! It isn’t perfect as there is a slight white line between the photos where they aren’t completely next to each other, but I love the look of it. I really like the style and how it all works together. These are my 4 favourite photographs and I think they look fantastic like this. I’m considering keeping this style of presenting my work. I think it looks much more interesting.

Doug Aitken

American artist Aitken is probably best known for his work with video, and the characteristics that define that medium are apparent within New Opposition. The photographs do not work as self-sufficient one-off frames but rely on each other for meaning. The optical tricks that the landscapes form when placed together give the impression to the viewer that they are either falling into the centre of the earth of are on top of it looking down as if from the apex of a pyramid. This active involvement by the viewer and the three-dimensional sculptural sensations of the photographs can also be seen in the elaborate installations that often accompany his videos. – Text and images from Susan Bright Art Photography Now

‘The series New Opposition consists of three pieces and was started in 2001. I was interested in the fragmentation of the image. I wanted to formulate an image that was whole but also broken apart. So these are multiple images working as one. I wanted to find a way to blend together different moments in time, different spaces and different locations. I wanted to bring them together in a central unifying image. They are not portraits or cityscapes but more an entropic progression. As the series progresses it becomes increasingly abstracted and denser and you get a sense of motion. The elements in the last image are ones you might just walk past in daily life – there is nothing special about the land. You can imagine someone who is surveying the land taking them. I really like the idea of banality and repetition being used to generate images, which are simple and unobstructed and not captivated by composition.

 The images create a cycle of different places, but they can all be tied together though the central unifying theme of the horizon, which cuts, perpendicular, through them. I was after a three-dimensional quality. Working as well as the ideas of montage and editing, basically filmic concepts, as in repetition. I wanted the eyes to constantly search for the horizon. When the images are brought together they collapse and create a feeling of retreating or expanding.’ – Doug Aitken