Station to Station

Climb aboard American artist Doug Aitken’s riff on the ultimate road movie – though this experimental documentary actually takes place on a custom-designed passenger train travelling across America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Made up of 62 one-minute snapshots from Aitken’s art project of the same name, ‘Station to Station’ gives you a glimpse at what happens when you throw creative caution to the wind. Over 23 days, Aitken invited artists, musicians, filmmakers and dancers to explore the notion of spontaneous creativity. It was filmed both from inside the train as well as the ten city stops, so you’re constantly on the move, dipping in and out of performances and collaborations.

Unmistakable,unpopulated American vistas of vast dusty-orange speckled with city lights whoosh past. Here’s Patti Smith serenading a crowd with lyrics like, ‘There is hardly nothing more beautiful than seeing the world from the train.’ And there’s Olafur Eliasson’s kinetic drawing machine, which captures the journey via the squiggly marks of an ink-covered ball. Sweaty marching bands perform inspired stomping acrobatics in cavernous spaces while Beck thoughtfully explains the spirit of travel in a car park filled with revellers at one of the impromptu ‘happenings’.

There’s no denying it, you’ll be wishing you’d been lucky enough to have journeyed with this band of extraordinary collaborators. The romanticism of being ‘on the road’; being part of a moment; creating free spirited responses to the surroundings. Where do I sign up? If only the commute to work was so exhilarating, we’d never want to get off the carriage.