Thursday, July 15, 2010

Imagine Eternity in Times Square

Imagine eternity in Times Square. Eternity, by definition, is “a state to which time has no application.” Eternity is timelessness.

Eternity is a wall-mounted kinetic sculpture that employs 30 electric clock movements and 36 hour and minute hands. Once every twelve hours the hands align to spell the word ETERNITY, which in this case only lasts a mere split second (video documentation available at vimeo.com/aliciaeggert).

We propose to bring Eternity to Times Square in one of many possible forms. The ideal realization would be to fabricate it at a much larger scale and erect it on an existing billboard. High-torque motors would be rear-mounted to the billboard’s structure and large, black, custom-made clock hands would rotate above the blank white surface of its front. The hands would be designed to align exactly at noon and at midnight every day, creating two events that would attract an audience eager to witness a fleeting moment of timelessness in Times Square. A potential addition to the work would be an LED countdown clock indicating the time “until eternity,” reminiscent of the countdown that occurs every New Year’s eve.

An active digital component of the piece would be a website featuring a live video feed, making it accessible to Internet audiences. Time-lapse photography would also be taken for the duration of the exhibition, resulting in a dynamic stop-motion animation of the work in relation to the flow of traffic in Times Square.

Other possible installation sites include vacant storefront windows, building facades, and the lobbies of office buildings, theaters and hotels, where the scale of the available location would determine the sculpture’s size and construction methods. The universal nature of time and its relevance to commerce, communication and culture ensures that any location in Times Square would be an appropriate site for Eternity – an ever-changing piece for an ever-changing place.

Imagine Eternity in Times Square.

Sincerely,
Alicia Eggert & Mike Fleming

(from our letter of application to the Times Square Alliance)

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