A white-haired lady walks through Richard Neutra’s iconic Silver Lake home at night, when she suddenly encounters a calmly purring mountain lion – and a grand piano in the room begins to play, all by itself, “Mad Rush” by Philip Glass.

It’s a scene from “Lightscape,” the latest, hard-to-explain creation from Los Angeles artist Doug Aitken. The 65-minute film will premiere Saturday at Walt Disney Concert Hall with live accompaniment from the Los Angeles Master Chorale and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic as part of the new music festival from noon to midnight.

“Lightscape” will then morph into an exhibition opening Dec. 17 at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles’ Windsor Square neighborhood, where Aitken’s film will be “exploded” on seven screens and expanded with physical artwork related to the film. Singers and musicians will come regularly on Saturday and interact with the film in real time. A third iteration, in partnership with IMAX, is also in preparation.

Aitken is reflected in one of his works in his studio. His project “Lightscape” is a film installation and immersive performance at Disney Hall and will later be an installation at the Marciano Art Foundation.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The word “multidisciplinary” is such a dry, academic term for art that, in theory, should be more like three-dimensional, sonic fireworks. “Kaleidoscope” here is a far preferable and more colorful depiction of Aitken’s ambition, which takes stunning, impressionistic and often dreamlike images of ordinary people moving through extraordinary California landscapes, and blends them into songs seemingly improvised as well as familiar minimalist masterpieces from composers like Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley.

In one passage, a man drives through the concrete streets of Los Angeles, and several women in the street sing “freeway” in mystical harmonies. In another, strangers sing together from their cars in a drive-in movie parking lot, flashing their headlights on the bright screen — their distance and location reminiscent of the pandemic era.

During the performance at Disney Hall, the same Master Chorale members seen in the film will stand on stage and synchronize their voices with the mouths on screen. Given that it’s Los Angeles, a few celebrities appear in the film, including Natacha Lyonne (which may or may not appear at the premiere) and Beck (which will be part of the Marciano race).

Aitken, 56, is also hard to explain person. With ocean gray eyes and a shock of white blond hair, he could almost pass for a cousin of David Lynch. He has a similarly genial manner – easy to laugh and quick to offer a cup of tea – that belies the strange hive of images buzzing in his head.

Born and raised in Redondo Beach, Aitken moved from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena to an early career in New York, playing with sculpture, light exhibitions, performance, film and other media. His work has been projected onto buildings, moving train cars and floating barges.

Her mirror-covered house in Palm Springs, “Mirage,” got a nod in the Showtime series “The Curse.” Series characters Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone dropped Aitken’s name in conversation – something he only learned about when his phone blew up with texts from friends.

“It was so weird,” Aitken said with a laugh. “I realized I was part of someone else’s fiction.”

Aitken with untitled hand-stitched and painted works on fabric, which will be exhibited at Regen Projects in conjunction with “Lightscape.”

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

But the meta layers of surrealism are on point for Aitken, who said he’s “really interested in this idea of ​​where the line between fiction and nonfiction becomes blurred.”

He recently acquired an old house near his studio in Mar Vista so he could dismantle parts of it for new works of art. A few years ago, he purchased a former transmission repair shop nearby and converted it into a studio where he makes his sculptures and paintings with a small team.

Aitken spent so many years listening to music created for his works (including pieces by his good friend Riley) that, “like some sort of evolutionary Galapagos lizard,” he says, “I sort of sort of developed a palette over time. , like, what I’m looking for. He’s not a trained musician, but he hears music in his head. A few years ago, he started singing words and phrases in his car at night, then sampled them, looped them, and cut them up to form compositions.

A mutual friend put him in touch with Grant Gershon, artistic director of the Master Chorale, and Aitken suggested they create a song cycle.

“There were maybe 10 or 12 sheets of paper,” Gershon said, “and each paper had a word or phrase on it. I think one of them was “highway”. Another said: “There was a man who lived here / he doesn’t live anymore.” »

Aitken surprised Gershon by asking if he could record Gershon improvising. “He just had me sing melodies or create sounds with my voice that could match, complement or counterpoint the words and phrases,” Gershon said. Other singers from the Master Choir then joined in and “laid the bricks of a cathedral one at a time,” Gershon said, “layering and combining and building and stacking and removing” .

“It was going to be almost a vocal earthwork,” said Aitken, who tends to think and speak in free-floating, supernatural concepts. “I wanted to have 30 to 80 singers in these different areas of the landscape, and a word or phrase is passed from person to person, creating a concentric ring or geometric patterns.”

This lasted for almost a year, then the pandemic hit.

In this strange and quiet time, the LA Phil contacted Aitken about a commission. He proposed basing it on this daily word song cycle in conjunction with the existing instrumental pieces, and integrating the result into an interactive film piece. “Lightscape” was born.

Aitken in his Culver City studio framed by “The River,” a kinetic light and sound sculpture that will be on display at the Marciano Art Foundation.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“This project has more moving parts than I’ve ever had,” he said.

With a skeleton crew and Aitken as cameraman, he filmed improvised moments with non-actors, located strange and beautiful areas of his home country to film, and arranged for a coyote, a horse and this puma participates.

“It was kind of like a six-month fever dream,” he said, citing inspirations such as Robert Altman and John Cassavetes.

He had Steinway program a player piano to perform “Mad Rush” with the Glass hammering style of playing, and he asked his roving camera to observe the big cat’s response to the music.

“It seemed like it hollowed out the room,” Aitken said, as sincere and wide-eyed as he is when talking about his body of work. “Very sweet, actually.”