DOUG AITKEN does not want you to sit back and enjoy the show. He tends to use multiple screens in his video installations to force you to move around. And he likes to project his films onto unlikely surfaces to snap you out of the usual cinematic reverie. In the past he has trapped characters inside a large wooden crate, flashed pairs of eyes on the facade of the Secession Building in Vienna and flooded the basement of the Serpentine Gallery in London with watery images.

Now Mr. Aitken, 38, is taking over a major New York landmark. For a month starting on Jan. 16, the dramatic action (or by Hollywood standards, inaction) of his newest film, ''sleepwalkers,'' will unfold outdoors -- on the facade and several other exterior walls of the Museum of Modern Art. The film is to run nightly from 5 to 10 p.m.

Doug Aitken's creative vision is just too expansive for a gallery wall. So he's taking it to the streets. In January, the video artist - whose installations won top honors at the 48th Venice Biennale and were displayed at two Whitney Biennials - debuts his latest flick, Sleepwalkers, on the facades of the Museum in New York. Fragments of Aitken's nonlinear film, an ambitious meditation on city living, will be projected simultaneously across seven exterior walls. The work tracks five fictional New Yorkers: A midtown executive, a mail sorter, a billboard technician, a subway drummer, and a Wall Street trader. Aitken filmed his actors (including Tilda Swinton, Donald Sutherland, and singer-songwriter Cat Power) in hidden subway tunnels, behind Times Square signs, and atop iconic skyscrapers in Rockefeller Center. As the characters go about their daily routines, their lives occasionally synchronize and overlap into the shared experience of urban existence. As Aitken puts it. "It's like chaos theory - finding order in this very kaleidoscopic new world we're living in, the quiet moments of harmony before things fall back into randomness." - Janelle Brown

A young artist in full bloom, Doug Aitken has redefined pop culture and high art with images that are accessible to all- and sublime to those in the know. Working in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art and Creative Time, Aitken is turning Manhattan inside out next month, making our private moments public. Sleepwalkers features seven large-scale projections wrapping the exterior MOMA, infusing the architectural space with the fractured, nonlinear narrative of our lives, the chaos of urban existence. It is a constantly shuffling kaleidoscope, remixing stories featuring characters played by Tilda Swinton, Chan Marshall (Cat Power), Seu Jorge, Ryan Donowho,and Donald Sutherland. The idea came to Aitken five years ago almost like a hallucination: "I was walking down an avenue alone in the early morning, looking up at the skyscrapers, and wanted to see them animated, in conversation with each other." This cinematic wonderland is a transcendent love letter where memory and narrative come together and then apart, with the rhythms of music, and the lyricism of poetry. -A.M. HOMES

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Museum of Modern Art director Glenn D. Lowry joined New York City officials today in announcing the institution's first foray into public art. Starting Jan. 16, 2007, a seven-screen film projection by Los Angeles-based artist Doug Aitken will wrap itself around the museum's glass facade and remain on view to passersby each evening through Feb. 12.

Its $20 admissions fee may leave you a bit cash poor, but the Museum of Modern Art is making the city rich. That, at least, was the argument that MoMA presented in a press conference yesterday. Museum officials announced the results of an economic impact study conducted by the marketing firm Audience Research & Analysis, and touted a public artwork the museum has commissioned from the conceptual artist Doug Aitken.

The economic impact study estimated that MoMA will directly or indirectly produce $2 billion in spending, and $50 million in tax revenues for New York City between fiscal year 2005, when the museum reopened, and fiscal year 2007.

Sweat beads on the brow of an Asian businessman while his fingers tap a nervous rhythm and his body convulses to a stress-induced chant. Meanwhile, a young professional woman hammers out her frustrations on a handball court. A factory worker takes a break, pounding the floor with a tap dance. Rapper Andre Benjamin gushes a verbal storm and then magically steps into thin air. Then silence, or something close: the background hum of the city, the buzz of fluorescent lights. These are the visual and sonic elements of Doug Aitken's impressive video installation Interiors, currently on display at the Henry Art Gallery. The three-screen video runs three near-wordless stories simultaneously on a sculptural framework of semi-transparent screens. The experience ranges from a frenetic sonic attack to quiet calm, all accompanied by a moody soundtrack reminiscent of Brian Eno. Each story is a vignette of urban loneliness, a poem about alienation and contemplation.