42nd Street-6th Avenue

Joshua Spodek, Submedia, Eyal Ohana, Molly Schwartz, Igal Nassima, Brett Murphy

Bryant Park in Motion

Bryant Park in Motion showcases creative work from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, on display March 2010 at the Bryant Park/42nd Street station, beneath the southeast corner of the 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue (Bryant Park).

The digital animations are activated by the eyes of viewers walking past the display, similar to zoetropes, which are early animation devices that produce an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. Masstransiscope, in the subway tunnel north of DeKalb Avenue uses a similar principal, with the train providing the motion. As with Samm Kunce's nearby permanent artwork, Under Bryant Park, each animation is inspired by a facet of Bryant Park. The images portray the park from below the surface to above the skyline; from nature to fashion, recreation, and the famed carousel. The short animations run as a continuous loop with intermittent pauses. They are designed to provide visual interest and a surprise to commuters and visitors passing through the subway mezzanine.

NYU Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) is the first graduate education program in alternative media. It has become a community of technology, theorists, engineers, designers, and artists exploring new boundaries of interactivity. For more information, visit: http://itp.nyu.edu/.

Joshua Spodek has been working with, and exhibiting images animated by the viewer's motion for years. He holds a PhD in Physics and an MBA from Columbia University.

Submedia creates animated displays for transit systems and generously provided equipment and support to the participating artists for this presentation.

Participating Students/Artists from ITP

-Eyal Ohana is a Graduate of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Israel where he studied visual communication, focusing on graphic design, animation, and film making.

-Molly Schwartz graduated with a BFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork combines painting, drawing, photography, stop-motion and computer animation.

-Igal Nassima is a programmer whose work with data led to interest in the media of sound, text and graphics. He runs 319 Scholes Performance space in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

-Brett Murphy animation artist, also contributed images for the project.