New York Dreaming Video at Fulton Center Shows NYC in Kaleidoscope

A new large scale video installation from MTA Arts & Design has been unveiled at Fulton Center, showing New York City’s architecture akin to a kaleidoscope. The work, New York Dreaming, by media artist Anne Spalter, is described as a “meditation on the city and the constant self-realization of its physical and psychic existence.” With a strong focus on architecture, Spalter takes the New York City skyline and uses a custom software to turn these images into something psychedelic. Here is a short clip courtesy of MTA Arts & Design:

You’ll recognize some notable buildings like the 40 Wall Street and 20 Exchange Place downtown, but mostly you’ll see architectural forms that are fundamentally New York City in nature but with their elements recombined and replicated. There’s a larger theoretical reason behind the technological trick. As the press release describes,

“New York is a city like no other, a combination of man-made and natural formations, perpetually evolving and reinventing itself–turning from one year to the next, unfolding. Its citizens, similarly, are dreamers, driven to bring their visions to life.”

The film plays on loop but only for two minutes at the beginning of each hour. You can find it on the large-screen inside the Fulton Center Oculus and in the Dey Street pedestrian tunnel until the beginning of 2017.

New York Dreaming is an evolution of Spalter’s long career which has focused on merging art and technology, merging her undergraduate degree in mathematics with a Master in Fine Arts. Much of her work focuses on manipulating video footage, with earlier work looking at Coney Island, Ground Zero, and other areas of New York City like Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue. Spalter founded the digital fine arts programs at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the 199os.

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