Creative Time

_Doug Aitken: sleepwalkers_ was jointly commissioned by Creative Time and the Museum of Modern Art. A cinematic art experience, _sleepwalkers_ was comprised of eight large-scale moving images projected onto the exterior of MoMA. The multiple projections collectively animated the building’s architecture with the nocturnal journeys of five city dwellers: a bicycle messenger, an electrician, a postal worker, a businessman, and an office worker.

Conceived by Aitken specifically for the museum’s broad expanses of glass, steel, and granite, sleepwalkers was inspired by the densely built environment of midtown Manhattan and portrayed the metropolis as a living organism fueled by the desires, energies, and ambitions of its inhabitants. While the installation thus suggested an inner life of the buildings, it also reclaimed modern architecture for personal expression and imbued anonymity with fluid human presence.

Curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Peter Eleey | Photograph by Fred Charles