Thousands of LEDs brighten Madison Square Garden this winter « Art's in the Right Place

Thousands of LEDs brighten Madison Square Garden this winter « Art's in the Right Place: I think that tonight would be great night to to Madison Square Garden can enjoy Scattered Light – a series of three public artworks by the new media artist Jim Campbell in the snow. Each piece is inspired by cities and their inhabitants. I strolled in the park last night on my home from a 2 1/2 hours yoga class with my teacher Carrie Owerko. Still on a high from class the Scattered Light instillation was extra magical.

The largest – also named Scattered Light – makes use of a kind of matrix measuring 80′h x 20′w x 16′d to hold nearly 2000 household lightbulbs containing LEDs.

When viewed head-on the LEDs, programmed to flicker scattered light, then create the impression of enormous human shadows passing through the structure. Moving round the installation distorts the effect and the human becomes abstract. You can see what I mean in the video above and the second part of one of the videos below.

Broken Window, the second installation, features an array of LEDs encased in a glass-brick wall (70″h x 70″w x 10″d) and shows blurry videos of people within a city environment across the glass plane. Their movements are intended to reflect the movement in Scattered Light.

The third is Voices in the Subway Station. Again, it features LEDs but this time they’re encased in 24 glass tablets measuring 14″ x 18″ each and spread across the lawn at ground level. The rhythm of light pulsing from each tablet is dictated by a recording of the voices of individual travelers in conversation on a subway platform. It’s the only part of the work which does not have a figurative element and sounds like it has a lot in common with some of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer‘s recent work."