Artinfo (in an article from the October 2009 Modern Painters issue) visits Art Center alumnus Doug Aitken ILLU ’91 to explore the audio experiments of the renowned video artist.

This month his “sound pavilion” will debut at Brazil’s Instituto Inhotim. For this piece, Aitken drilled a hole deep into the ground to broadcast the earth’s “primal, geologic sounds.”

“As if putting a stethoscope to the planet’s heart, he has used a system of ultrasensitive amplifiers and geomicrophones (like the ones geologists use to record the breaking up of glaciers in Antarctica) to transform these guttural registers into audible sounds that fill a ground-level glass pavilion above. He expects the visitors in the pavilion both to have intensely private experiences and to become part of a larger community—the audience created by sound.”

Read the article here. For more on Aitken, read Art Center’s interview with him here.