Broken Screen Happening
Doug Aitken with Aa, Vito Acconci, Black Dice, Stan Brakhage, Adam Green, George Greenough, Jeff Koons, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Miranda July, Kelly Sears, Superstudio
May 6, 2006
Essex Street Market, 80 Essex Street
Image courtesy Creative Time
Doug Aitken’s book Broken Screen is comprised of informal conversations between himself and a roster of twenty-five carefully chosen filmmakers, designers, architects, and other artists. Part guidebook, part manifesto, Aitken’s book took a fresh look at what it’s like to create artwork in a world that has become increasingly fragmentary. Through casual and direct discussions Broken Screen offers a detailed navigation through the ideas behind the important yet under-documented visual language of nonlinear narratives, split screens, and fragmentary visual planes that define the most progressive moving images today. Perhaps best of all, Broken Screen is a unique opportunity for readers to learn the thoughts and personal beliefs of the featured artists in their own words and imagery, unencumbered by critical or commercial filters, and communicated in the manner of a conversation between friends. Through the vehicle of Broken Screen, Aitken sought to produce a cultural manifesto for new communication, expression, and understanding in both the present and future.
In partnership with Hermès, and in celebration and recognition of Aitken’s editorial work in bringing multivalenced artistic disciplines together, Creative Time presented Broken Screen Happening–a night of musical performances by Aa, Black Dice, and Adam Green; conversations between Aitken and Vito Acconci, Miranda July, and Jeff Koons; and film screenings by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Superstudio, Kelly Sears, George Greenough, Stan Brakhage, and Acconci.