Dementors at Times Square and David Hockney at Pickadilly: Art of Street Screens

Midnight Moment at Times Square, NYC

Ever since 2012 the ad billboards at Times Square show one of the largest and longest digital art exhibitions. It is organized by Times Square Alliance, the NGO dealing with the main NY square image enhancement. Its members also promote the local business and coordinate Times Square events.

Times Square Arts is one of the largest projects for artists working with public arts. Each year the exhibition attracts around 2.5 mln people. In 9 years, the Times Square Arts has shown works by almost 200 artists, both famous ones and novices.

Every day 11:57 p.m. marks the start of artwork presentation which lasts for three minutes. Throughout the year, 12 authors are thus exhibited at Times Square. In 2021 the screen demonstrations included David Hockney videos, and in the years before – works of Yoko Ono, Bjork, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol.

‘Where Do We Go From Now’ video feauring Ai Weiwei, Patti Smitt, Marina Abramović is broadcast at Times Square, NYC. Video: CIRCA

Harry Potter at Times Square

In 2019 the ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ play producers collaborated with AKA NYC to present a 3-minute animation show which stretched out 4 blocks in length. This play by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany and J.K.Rowling tells about the Harry Potter’s and Draco Malfoy’s kids – it was first staged in London, and later on Broadway.

For the play’s promo its producers rented 51 Times Square screens. 8 companies engaged in digital technology assisted in providing a 360-degree videobroadcasting. The viewers gathered up at the square saw words ‘Welcome Back to Hogwarts’ and a timer counting down to the moment Harry Potter appeared on screen. As soon as it happened, the screen became static and the shades of dementors, soul eaters, emerged. As the image turned black, a main play’s tagline appeared – ‘Sometimes darkness comes from unexpected places’.

Photo: Steven Ferdman / Getty Images North America / AFP

Patti Smith concert at Piccadilly Circus in London

At central London’s Picadilly, the year of 2021 was to begin with a 15-minute performance by an American singer Patti Smith and a German artist Anna Imhoff. But due to the covid restrictions, mass gatherings were banned and the performance was broadcast in an empty square.

Patti Smith performed the Scottish folk song Auld Lang Syne, which is traditional for the New Year, and then gave a speech in memory of the doctors whose lives were talen by Covid-19. Throughout January, Patti Smith’s poems were playing on the 783-square-foot Piccadilly Lights screen starting 8:21 p.m. One of them was dedicated to the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

A cat and a waterfall at Times Square, as well as a wave in Seoul’s Gangnam district

A South Korean digital design company d’strict has set up several large-scale projects in a year. A group of artists from d’strict is passionate about the interaction of nature and man: their video installations are united by water, and in 2021 the company’s employees took part in the joint “Nature of Art” exhibition in Busan.

The first May 2020 installation was the immersive one called WAVE, which popped up in one of the most expensive areas of Seoul, Gangnam. It was broadcast on the screen of the Coex Artium Theater. Due to the angular displays position, the audience had the illusion that the wave was crashing right inside the building.

Video: d’strict, a whale at the Times Square, NYC

In the summer of 2021, the company unveiled two new installations at Times Square, New York. The first one – a 3D whale splashing in the ocean on a 1.4 thousand square meters display. A 100-meter 3D waterfall was launched by d’strict not far from there, at the One Times Square skyscraper. It required four vertical screens.

David Hockney and his video art signifying hope in the midst of a pandemic

David Hockney and his video art signifying hope in the midst of a pandemic
In May 2021, British artist David Hockney presented a two-minute video entitled ‘Remember you cannot look at the sun or death for very long’. This is an animated video with the sun slowly rising up above the plain and then flashing, filling the entire screen with its light. The sun in the Hockney’s artwork symbolizes hope to bring an end to the pandemic and to return to normal life.

Photo: Yushi Li / CIRCA
Video: CIRCA

The artist drew a video while in France on his iPad, just before the release of his book ‘Spring Cannot be Cancelled’. The video was shown on the street screens in five cities: New York, London, Seoul, Los Angeles and Tokyo. After that, some new works by Hockney could be spotted on the screens.

A Fortnite game character clad in Balenciaga on the screens of London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul

This year in September the fashion house Balenciaga created a clothing line for the computer game Fortnite. Together, they launched an ad campaign on the streets of London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul: LED screens in the city centres revealed a 3D Fortnite character Doggo, wearing Balenciaga sneakers, pants and hoodie. Unreal Engine technology created the illusion of Doggo being right on the street, like other passers-by. The image adjusted to changes in lighting and time of the day, so in cloudy weather the shadows were softer and the colors were more muffled.

A New Year show on the Gulliver screens

The start of 2021 saw Gulliver shopping and entertainment center in Kyiv completely reinstalling screens on its facade. Now they cover a 3,864 square meters surface, which so far is the largest one in the whole Europe. Just compare: a Piccadilly Lights square in London is just 783 square meters.

In September, Gulliver partnered with Expolight, a light design company, to create a space-themed video installation. Unusually shaped three-dimensional figures appeared on the screen, with their movements accompanied by a sound immitating the noise of a spaceship. A similar technology was used in South Korea when the installation “Wave” was shown on the ad screen in Seoul. To maximize the effect, the video had to be viewed from a certain angle, so the organizers marked spots for getting the best view on the ground with stickers.

Video: Expolight / Gulliver

On December 9, the photos of the Bird in Flight Prize ‘21 finalists were presented on the shopping center screens. This year there were artists from Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and other countries. Pictures taken by the contest’s winner were also broadcast on Gulliver screens the next week.

Right before the New Year, Gulliver and Expolight have created yet another large-scale 3D show. According to the Chinese calendar, the symbol of 2022 is the Blue Water Tiger, so it became the main character of the video installation. The tiger walks on a screen about 200 meters long, at times diving and jumping out. Due to the scenography and sound techniques, its authors created the three-dimensional space effect. The show is accompanied with the Jingle Bells track.

Cover video: d’strict, a wave at the Gangnam square, Seoul