Geometric in design, the sculptures created environments that reflected and refracted light, opening a portal that physically connected a viewer to the expanse of the ocean while simultaneously disrupting preconceived visual ideas of the aquatic world.

Multiple speakers create an immersive sound experience; the multi-screen film explores a guarded region in the Namib desert in southwestern Africa known as Diamond Area 1 and 2.

[6] His ambitious show New Ocean, which included multiple sound, photo, and video works, began with a transformation of the Serpentine Gallery in London and traveled the world to Austria, Italy and Japan, each time in a new configuration.

[18] Aitken has shown NEW ERA, a kaleidoscopic multi-channel video installation in a mirrored hexagonal room, in various locations across the world, from New York[19] to Zurich,[20] Denmark, Beijing,[21] California[22] and London.

[24] In 2023 in Zürich, he showed a five-channel video installation titled HOWL where "oil derricks spot the rolling, sun-bleached hills of a desolate valley in central California while plywood boards shutter local stores.

[26] In 2001, Aitken's exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery used the entire building for the complex installation New Ocean including transforming the museum's tower into a functional lighthouse at night.

[28] In the winter of 2007, Aitken's large-scale installation Sleepwalkers, curated by Klaus Biesenbach in collaboration with Creative Time, was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The first installment in a three-part trilogy entitled Empire, the work features migratory wild animals of North America as they pass through and curiously inhabit empty and desolate hotel rooms.

[31] Continuing Aitken's work in large scale outdoor video installation, his artwork "SONG 1" (2012), created for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, challenged the standard of public art in Washington D.C.

[32] Another example of what the artist has called 'liquid architecture', his freestanding installation ALTERED EARTH (2012) explores the Camargue region of southern France in a maze-like flowing arrangement of twelve large projections in the hangar-like Grande Halle of the Parc des Ateliers in Arles.

A computer program selects which parts of the footage to project in response to a live feed of information that ranges from the weather to the density of traffic in the streets of Seattle.

[6] In 2009, Aitken orchestrated a real-time opera titled "the handle comes up, the hammer comes down" that assembled auctioneers performing against the rhythms of his Sonic Table, at Il Tempo del Postino, at Theater Basel.

[37] "Black Mirror" was also a four-night event staged on a custom barge, again featuring a performers from the film: Leo Gallo, Tim McAfee-Lewis, No Age, and Chloë Sevigny.

[42] Interested in the uneasy intersection of nature and culture or narrative variability, the artist has incorporated into his scores what he calls "field recordings," such as jungle noises from Jonestown, Guyana (in his 1995 monsoon), and the reverberations of tremors generated by the eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat (in eraser, 1998).

In 1996, for the public art organization Creative Time, Aitken conceived an installation piece in the Anchorage, a cavernous space inside the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, that used recordings of the traffic noises overhead.

Aitken is also a producer of books: I AM A BULLET: Scenes from an Accelerating Culture (2000) a collaboration with writer Dean Kuipers; Doug Aitken: A-Z Book (Fractals) (2003), the alphabet serves as structure to arrange Aitken's photography and video work, along with texts and interviews; Broken Screen (2005), a book of interviews with 26 artists pushing the limits of linear narrative; Alpha, published in 2005 by the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Sleepwalkers (2007), published by the Museum of Modern Art, in correspondence to the film and video installation of the same name; 99 Cent Dreams (2008), a collection of photographs that captures "moments between interaction" to create a 21st-century nomadic travelogue;[44] Write In Jerry Brown President (2008), a folded artist book published by the Museum of Modern Art,;[45] The Idea of the West (2010), which asked 1,000 people about their idea of the west, and was produced in conjunction with a happening at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,;[46] Black Mirror (2011), features a nomadic Chloë Sevigny, produced in conjunction with a video installation and live theater performance staged on a barge;[47] SONG 1 (2012), accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the book takes the form of the Hirshhorn itself, while examining the artwork that explores the idea of pure communication through the pop song I Only Have Eyes for You.

Artists that participated included Kenneth Anger, Olaf Breuning, Peter Coffin, Thomas Demand, Urs Fischer, Meschac Gaba, Liz Glynn, Fischli & Weiss, Fritz Haeg, Carsten Höller, Olafur Eliasson, Christian Jankowski, Aaron Koblin, Ernesto Neto, Nam June Paik, Jorge Pardo, Jack Pierson, Nicolas Provost, Stephen Shore, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Lawrence Weiner.

Musicians included Beck, The Black Monks of Mississippi, Boredoms, Jackson Browne, Cat Power, Cold Cave, The Congos, Dan Deacon, Eleanor Friedberger, The Handsome Family, Lia Ices, Kansas City Marching Cobras, Lucky Dragons, Thurston Moore, Giorgio Moroder, Nite Jewel, No Age, Patti Smith, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Savages (band), Mavis Staples, Suicide (band), Sun Araw, Thee Satisfaction, Twin Shadow and others.

Printed matter contributors included Taylor-Ruth Baldwin, Yto Barrada, Sam Durant, Karen Kilimnik, Urs Fischer, Catherine Opie, Jack Pierson, Raymond Pettibon, and Josh Smith.

Envisioned as a living exhibition, the entire multi-arts facility was turned into a large scale multi-disciplinary event, with more than 100 artists, including Olafur Eliasson, Martin Creed, and Terry Riley.

Experimental in format, the film was described as "...a textured, visceral collection of 62 shorts capturing moments during the three-week journey..."[56][57] Aitken has participated in over 200 art exhibitions throughout the world.

Among others, he has had solo exhibitions at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt,[59] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,[60] Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Serpentine Gallery, London, Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Deste Foundation, Greece and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan.