For three minutes before every midnight in October, artist Ryoji Ikeda will repurpose Times Square’s electronic billboards for an audiovisual installation. Ikeda’s “tightly synchronized, flickering black-and-white imagery—mining data for mathematical beauty” will take over 47 screens across five blocks.
The Japanese Paris-based electronic composer, sound, and visual artist follows Robert Wilson’s video portraits, Tracey Emin’s neon hearts and others, as part of the Midnight Moment Times Square Arts program. ARTinfo helpfully presents Ryoji Ikeda’s press quote:
00110110 01100001 01100011 01100011 01100100 01100001 01100101 00110001 00110011 01100101 01100110 01100110 00110111 01101001 00110011 01101100 00111001 01101110 00110100 01101111 00110100 01110001 01110010 01110010 00110100 01110011 00111000 01110100 00110001 00110010 01110110 01111000
The project test pattern will be re-imagined as an outdoor installation as test pattern [times square]. For a special screening on October 16th, 400 sets of headphones will be provided to the viewers of the piece so they can get the full experience of the installation. It will probably be mostly these guys.
(Photo: Ryoji Ikeda)
