Purple Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover
Purple is happy to present it’s curator for this months TV Takeover, Los Angeles multimedia artist DOUG AITKEN. No stranger to curation, last year Aitken famously led a train filled with an impressive array of artists, musicians, writers, photographers, designers and other creatives westward across America in September 2013 — staging “happenings” in public locations along the way as part of his Station to Station project. It was a “living manifesto on creativity today, documenting the people and stories that define our creative landscape.” International artists such as URS FISCHER, CARSTON HÖLLER,OLAFUR ELIASSON, and experimental filmmaker KENNETH ANGER contributed mobile art yurts or films; musicians likeCAT POWER, BECK, GIORGIO MORODER, PATTI SMITH, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, Twin Shadow, and THURSTON MOORE provided live music, a food “happening” by RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA, and marching bands Kansas City, are amouhg the few contributors.
His curation in music is also reflected in his other artworks. In late 2012 he collaborated with legendary minimalist composer TERRY RILEY to perform alongside his Altered Earth installation in Arles.
In each of his artworks, Aitken chooses the medium or combination that amplifies and visually articulates the subject’s qualities. For Song 1 (2012) commissioned for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC,Sleepwalkers (2007) installation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Migration (2008) installation at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Aitken re-imagines the museum’s façade as a screen onto which a film is projected for a greater audience.
His latest exhibition Still Life is currently on show at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. The show features an installation of new sculptural objects within a labyrinthine space designed to create an experience of unexpected encounters and a sense of mystery and discovery for the viewer to navigate.
The TV Takeover coincides with our latest Purple Fashion magazine document of his ongoing project Acid Modernism.Acid Modernism is the title of the house he built with his partner GEMMA PONSA in Venice, California. A geometric nest, an architectural artwork “physically connected to the vibrations of the surrounding nature.” Read more on this work and see our exclusive photos in Purple Fashion magazine #22 available to buy here.
For his TV Takeover look forward to an array of the obscure – from art and music to Japanese TV commercials and drug fuelled interviews. Day 1 is Married to the Eiffel Tower (2008) a fascinating observation documentary about three women with the disorder called Objectum Sexuality where they are sexually attracted and emotionally attached to inanimate objects.
[October 11 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover/ Rive Gauche Perfume by Yves Saint Laurent commercial (1979) by YSL
“There she goes, independent woman” — Rive Gauche perfume designed just for… — “…the girl who’s so contemporary. She’s having too much fun to marry!” — Rive Gauche perfume, Yves Saint Laurent designed it just for you! Because you’re NOTHING like the past. — “She’s not sittin’ home by the phone. If she goes, she goes alone!” — Nothing like the past. — “Rive Gauche!” — At Macy’s.
[October 7 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy – King Tutta by Noel Fielding and Nigel Coan
For Day 2 of his TV Takeover artist Doug Aitken choose’s Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, a psychedelic fusion of live action and animation, with music by Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzorno. In this episode, King Tutta, Dolly falls in love with a hat, Roy Circles reveals how he got over the death of his wife, oel uses his magic typewriter to obtain the ultimate frying pan, and Fantasy Man runs into The Bobbatron on the way to seal up a crack in the internet. “Start from around 7:20 – the Fantasy Man skit, it’s really quite amazing!” – Doug Aitken
[October 14 2014] : art
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Silence (1968) by Jules Engel
Jules Engel is a pioneer in the field of animation as a visual art form. Born in Budapest in 1909, Engel grew up outside of Chicago and then moved to Los Angeles as a young man where he successfully created dual careers as an abstract artist and experimental filmmaker.
After serving as a filmmaker for the U.S. Air Force in World War II, he joined United Productions of America as part of the team that created Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo. Throughout the 1960s, Engel was absorbed in painting and abstract filmmaking; in 1970 he became the founding director of the Abstract Experimental Animation Department at the California Institute of the Arts, where he taught for... Read More
[October 17 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takoever / Robert Morris Bodyspacemotionthings at Tate Modern by TateShots
Interactive art was a new concept when the exhibition Bodyspacemotionthings first went on show at the Tate in 1971. Created by the American artist Robert Morris, it consists of a series of beams, weights, platforms, rollers, tunnels and ramps that people can clamber all over. It closed just four days after opening, due to safety concerns over the wildly enthusiastic reaction of the audience. For The Long Weekend 2009 the exhibition was recreated at Tate Modern using stronger, modern materials. In this film we watch the reaction of todays visitors, and speak to curators Catherine Wood and Kathy Noble about Morriss vision and influence.
[October 16 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Doped Youth (2005) by Adam Blakey and Ozzie Wright
An eAn extract from Doped Youth directed and produced by surfers Adam Blakey and Ozzie Wright. Shot on location in Australia, this film features some of the world’s best wave riders in a fictional story about a group of degenerate surfer-musicians called Doped Youth who go up against formidable opponent Groovy Avalon (Kelly Slater) in a battle of the bands.
[October 15 2014] : art
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Catalog (1961) by John Whitney
This video showcases the 1961 reel from motion graphics pioneer John Whitney. Whitney created the effects using a home-built analogue computer famously made use of parts from an anti-aircraft gun sight. His techniques famously inspired Douglas Trumbull to use the slit scan technique on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
[October 8 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Butthole Surfers / 80s Interview in Bed (Part I) by Butthole Surfers
The American rock band Butthole Surfers, formed by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1981, have a well-reported appetite for recreational drugs, an evident influence on their sound. This video the infamous band give a drug fueled interview in bed.
[October 12 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / 7Up “Bubbles” commercial (1974) by Robert Abel and Associates
The ground-breaking 60-second commercial created for 7up in 1974 by Robert Abel & Associates, which brought an exciting new visual language to television. Unlike anything preceding it, it is a multi-media extravaganza featuring rear-projection, live action, video feedback, back-lit graphics and streak and slit-scan techniques. The debut of this commercial was a watershed moment in televison adverstising for “breaking through the clutter.”
[October 6 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Married to the Eiffel Tower (2008) by Agnieszka Piotrowska
Married to the Eiffel Tower is a fascinating documentary written and directed by Polish-born director Agnieszka Piotrowska in 2008. An observation documentary about three women with the disorder called Objectum Sexuality where they are sexually attracted and emotionally attached to inanimate objects such as the Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge. They maintain to have intimate relationships with them, including comunicating with them through telepathy. The film suggests gently that this might be a psychological defence as the protagonists have suffered at the hands of people.
[October 10 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band by Khun Narin
Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band’s membership is always in rotation and spans several generations, from high school kids to men well into their 60s. A standard engagement has the band setting up at the hosting household during the morning rituals, playing several low-key sets from the comfort of plastic lawn chairs occasionally working in a cover version of a foreign classic while the beer and whiskey flow freely. After a mid-day banquet, they start up the generator and lead a parade through the community to the local temple, picking up more and more partiers along the way. The band takes pride in their custom PA system, as well as an imposing tower of 8 loudspeaker... Read More
[October 13 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover – Allan Kaprow / How to Make a Happening by Mass Art Inc.
Allan Kaprow is the Atlantic City, New Jersey-born, New York University and Columbia-educated painter and performance artist who created (and named) Happenings. In his 1966 album How To Make A Happening he states: “Forget all the standard art forms. Don’t paint pictures. Don’t make poetry. Don’t build architecture. Don’t arrange dances. Don’t write plays. Don’t compose music. Don’t make movies, and above all don’t think you’ll get a Happening by putting all these together.” Kaprow hosted 200 Happenings throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Read the full text from the album here.
The album has a silkscreened cover with a photo from Allan Kaprow’s happening “Household”, Cornell University, 1964
[October 9 2014] : Television
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Charles Bronson Mandom Perfume Commercial (1976) by Mandom
For Day 4 of his TV Takeover artist Doug Aitken selects the Japanese commercial for toiletry brand Mandom starring Charles Bronson, of “Death Wish” franchise fame.
Mandom recruited Bronson to promote the fragrance line after his film, “Once Upon A Time In The West” became a hit in Japan. To the east he was considered as the quintessential ‘Western Man.’ The actor was paid $100,000 to star in the commercial which took Japanese director, Nobuhiko Ohbayashi, four days to shoot. Apparently, the sum exceeded the fees Bronson made for his memorable roles in both “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” together. In the commercial we see Bronson bathing in perfume/aftershave while the song “All the... Read More
