As part of Doug Aitken’s monumental New Horizons project and our A Future World campaign, this mini-doc catches the singer reflecting on our place in nature and climate activism

Flying a 100-foot-tall mirror-surfaced hot-air balloon through the skies of Massachusetts may not immediately provoke intensive thought into the state of the planet, but that’s exactly what it left Mac DeMarco pondering after his collaboration with New Horizons, a project by contemporary artist Doug Aitken which combines performance and conversation, and inspires reflection upon the future of the natural world. As part of Dazed’s ongoing A Future World campaign, we tagged along for the ride.

With musical performances at each location, the “Salad Days” singer was set to perform alongside a stellar line-up, including Kelsey Lu and Julianna Barwick – that is, until he nearly had to abandon the project after adverse weather prevented the hot-air balloon from taking flight. But eager to see the discoball-like creation, DeMarco held on tight. “I don’t know, something about it. I like hot air balloons, you know, this one’s like twice as big as a normal one, it’s covered in mirrors, it’s beautiful,” he tells us in the mini-doc captured onsite.

For DeMarco, Aitken’s project highlights the precarious position of the natural world. “It’s just like a big, ‘Hello! Check out what we got!’,” he says. “‘But if you fuck it up, we’re not gonna have it for that much longer’”. The 29-year-old hopes that people will be inspired by the magnificent beauty of the giant balloon, and that it will provoke helpful conversations around the climate crisis. “Will people be like, ‘Ah, Mother Earth,’ or will they be like, ‘Damn, that balloon would look good on my Instagram’. It’s hard to say.”

“Hopefully, you reach out into enough different zones and then hopefully everybody comes, and hopefully everybody gets the idea,” he says. “They see the beautiful balloon and everybody drives their cars into the ocean and never buys anything plastic again. That’d be good.” 

Watch DeMarco discuss New Horizons and the journey to his performance below.

Doug Aitken’s New Horizon was presented by The Trustees as part of their Art & the Landscape initiative, and ran from 12 – 28 July 2019 at multiple sites across Massachusetts. For more information, please see here