Doug Aitken: Alpha

“I became restless with the flat surface of the screen so the work gradually evolved into the rest of the space”, says Doug Aitken of his multichannel film work. Lately he has been projecting from multiple points onto a single structure. And he has turned from wide-open and lonely landscapes (Electric Earth, Diamond Sea) to wide-open and lonely people (new skin). The protagonist of the surreal Alpha, played by cult actor Udo Kier is both: as he travels, he dematerializes and becomes the space that he inhabits. Luckily for readers, Aitken is as bored with the square shape of the conventional book as he is with the conventional screen: this collection of Alpha images, accompanied by text from the artist, is bound in the shape of a head in profile.