13. Times Square Midnight Moment

Allison Schullnick, Moth. Photo: Ka-Man Tse for Times Square Alliance

Every month a new video installation takes over the screens of Times Square at midnight for Midnight Moment, the world’s longest running digital art exhibition. This month from 11:57 PM to midnight, the screens will be taken over by Allison Schullnick’s animated film, Moth in partnership with the museum MASS MoCA. According to Time Square Arts, Moth “ushers in the new year with symbols of birth, renewal and change. A hand-painted moth flutters in stop-motion, transforming from a fully-formed insect, to a nascent cocoon, to fantastical, sometimes ominous creatures. Schulnik began this work after a moth hit her studio window, painting frames for the film almost daily for 14 months as she was pregnant with and gave birth to her first child. The work reflects on the cycles of life and the bodily and emotional metamorphosis of motherhood.”

Midnight Moment is the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. Presented by the Times Square Advertising Coalition and curated by Times Square Arts since 2012, it has an estimated annual viewership of 2.5 million.