The Serpentine Gallery commissioned Doug Aitken, the Los Angeles-based film and installation artist, to produce a new work for the gallery.
For New Ocean (2001) the Serpentine gave Aitken unprecedented access to the entire building, where he threaded a sequence of filmed images, sound and photographic works throughout the exhibition spaces and beyond to the lantern on the gallery’s roof.
For the first time, viewers began their visit in the basement of the Serpentine Gallery, emerging via stairs into the main galleries. Shot in fictional realities created for the work, as well as locations such as the Arctic and Argentina, New Ocean created a new topography of a world in constant change.
