soon - from midnight to midnight - Times Square - New York City
Times Square Day of the Arts
Come with me and envisage the following scenery:
The flashing lights on Times Square's high-rises have been switched off, the motorized vehicles have disappeared - Times Square unplugged.
People are sitting on benches or rugs and on the pavement, watching the pigeons, the passers-by, the street ballet, talking, thinking, contemplating, and enjoying the sun and the scenery just like in an Italian piazza - Times Square is La Piazza del Tempo.
The artists of New York are holding a gathering. In fact, everybody is an artist in one way or the other. You are one as well. Imagine all these hundreds of painters behind their easels; see the women, men, and children drawing, sculpting, making pottery, writing poetry and stories; see yourself creating - in the Square of the Arts.
The dancers from the theatres, their audiences, the staff of all the hotels, the residents, the bankers, the shoppers and the tourists have come out in the open. There is music, folk, tango, hip-hop and opera; the entertainment and the music of the world. People dance and we join in with our own drums. For once, let us do the play ourselves - a day and a night on Broadway.
HOW
This vision - an unplugged Times Square, La Piazza del Tempo, the Square of the Arts, a self made play on Broadway, the unraveling of the mystery of Times Square can become reality if you want it. The Day of the Arts will happen if everybody wishes it and is interested in it: the people of New York City, the Times Square Alliance, every single business, office and resident in the area, and the City of New York. It takes our combined action and it has to become a win-win situation for everybody involved, for all of us.
Spread the word. Forward the message to everybody on your mailing list. Talk about this project with your friends, your colleagues, your family, the people in the streets; discuss the idea. Come up with your own ideas. Email each other and us. Ask questions. Tell us about your ideas. We will write in our diary what you have written to us. mail@dayofthearts.com
Please write to your officials, write to your mayor, to your Arts Department, to The Times Square Alliance, to anybody who you believe could help to make it happen. If you are an organization, part of the administration, a Times Square based business please get in touch. Would you like to support us in any way? We would appreciate any help you can offer.
When the time comes that it manifests, please do not hesitate, take what you need for a day and come to Times Square. Bring your friends and your family. Bring your ideas, your art, your tools, your peace and your joy. Bring your love to our public places. You are welcome.
YOUR LOCAL DAY OF THE ARTS
If you don't live in New York City or its neighborhood and still want to have your Day of the Arts, please look for the beautiful and miraculous but noisy, clogged and hectic place in your town or city. Imagine it to be a centre of quietude and a place of the arts for one day.
Ask your mayor and the interested groups in your town or city if they want to do that with you. Create networks. Create your Day of the Arts in your place. Join us and help spread the message, and make it an event for the whole of America, for Europe, for Africa, Asia, Australia, and wherever you live in the cities of world.
Please help us create a celebration of the wonderful cities of the world and our global artists' community in our local areas for one day. Get in touch, get connected, send us your web links.
TIMES SQUARE DAY OF THE ARTS - A LETTER to NEW YORK CITY
Berlin, Jan 25, 2008
Dear New Yorkers,
Dear Mr Bloomberg,
Dear Mr Tim Tompkins,
I am an artist, and I live in Berlin, Germany. I am writing to you because I would like to suggest an arts project on Times Square to which I was inspired by the place itself:
Back in April 2005 I spent two weeks in New York City, and so connected a wish with a purpose. I love cities, people, and life, and I was going to study places in cities as phenomena and expressions of human life and creativity on earth. New York City is subject to countless products of all kinds of media and now I finally had the opportunity to find out if the images I had nurtured of the metropolis conformed in any way with reality. The vision of Times Square Day of the Arts was a quite unexpected outcome of my studies. When I returned to New York last summer and again spent time on Times Square, I had to seriously ask myself the question: Why don't we actually do it? Now is the time! Please, let me expand a little on this idea and how it came about.
New York City
New York City impressed me more than any other city I have ever seen, and yet I think it is almost impossible to find words about it that have not been said before. I have to take the risk of repeating those of my numerous predecessors: I loved it and I hated it. I was overwhelmed, attracted and repelled. It took me months to process the input of two weeks, and I have not been able to describe a minute share of what this city represents. It is a many-faceted place of extreme contrasts: it is so beautiful and it is so ugly, full of bright lights and pitch dark shadows, millions of trees and large areas of concrete and tarmac, unbearable noise and speed and calming quiet, tall high-rises and low buildings right next to each other, wealth and poverty, heart-warming compassion and heart-breaking cruelty, genuine authenticity and flat artificiality, uniformity and diversity. It is full of wonderful, easygoing people, and I also felt a great sadness in places. I could hardly believe that any city in the world unites such stark contrasts that adjacent to each other. Sometimes this literally caused my eyes to sting.
It now comes as no surprise to me that NYC is a screen for many people of the global community to project on it all kinds of human expectations, archetypal desires and fears, and contradictions of the human character. For many it might be a role model for modern city life. Others apparently conceive of New York City as the embodiment of good and/or evil. At any rate, New York City has a compelling importance for cities and people all over the globe.
Times Square
My first encounter with Times Square happened rather coincidentally, though inevitably, since when walking down Broadway from Central Park one has to pass Times Square. I was shocked and awed.
Times Square is an exciting and at the same time irritating place; it is a cauldron of sensual impressions. It is a playground for time and energies, and it is not a square in a sense that it is meant to be relaxing. There are no quiet spots, no tiny corners on the edges of the stream of busy pedestrians, no benches, no trees; instead there are overflowing sidewalks and never-ending traffic, and in the face of hundreds of square meters billboards, flickering lights, and racing headlines the eye can never rest. In between all that I had to have a closer look at the central flowerbeds, because I was not sure if those flowers were genuinely alive. I watched people rushing and running and - despite my feeling of attraction - I had an urgent need to get away as soon as possible. Yet I kept coming back again and again and continued watching for the next few days. From where I am now, I can say it has meaning and importance in an extraordinary way.
At some point I realized that the design and the effects of Times Square and its billboards are intentional, and that this is obviously one of the features that make Times Square so unique and an attraction for tourists and residents alike. Nevertheless my overall impression was that life on Times Square seems to occur at an accelerated pace, and - although there are so many people there at all times - not many of them actually seemed to be interested in prolonging their stay beyond a certain point.
The Idea
I would like to suggest a celebration of serenity in one of the fastest, one of the most hectic and exciting, least quiet places in the world, which would be a living contrast in the city of contrasts. Times Square is unique in a way that no other place will do.
I would like to suggest a slow day, a twenty-four hours lasting reverence to a place, a party of tranquility and creation. This would be a day of serenity, arts and contemplation, and of the discovery of the artist in all of us. Imagine an unplugged Times Square, una Piazza del Tempo as mellow as an Italian town square, the Square of the Arts, a people made open air play on Broadway, and the unraveling of the mystery of Times Square. Let us be quiet so this place can speak: through our works of art created during 24 hours from midnight to midnight: the music, the images, the poetry, the dance of the people of New York City.
This could also be a day of reflection, of becoming conscious of what Times Square, what New York City, what America is. It could be a day to recall the soul and spirit of New York City, this wonderful place of multi-culturalism, of music, poetry, fine arts, dance, and theatre, and a day of contemplating future visions. Times Square is of great symbolism and importance to the world; hence this event could generate great attention, and inspire similar initiatives in cities worldwide.
Something in the Air
I have heard friends of mine - New Yorkers - say that disasters such as the power failure in August 2003, which of course entailed severe consequences, and even the terrible events of 09/11 made them experience Times Square in a state of quietude. Despite the sadness that those days overshadowed some people said they actually appreciated to be able to see this place in a different light. Yet, why should only violence or accidents give us the opportunity to experience the places of our cities in a bit of an unusual way? Why should only misery, pain and mourning about the loss of our beloved force us to slow down for a little while and look at things from a different angle? I believe, we can give ourselves the time to do this right here and now, watch the pigeons and listen to each others' and our inner voices; just because we want to.
During the two hundred years of its existence, time and again efforts were made to make Times Square a good place. Times Square has become a crucial point, a magnet for an increasing number of strollers, tourists, business people and commuters with the result of increased congestion on sidewalks and roads alike. So it seems only logical, generous and desirable to surrender to this kind of gentle pressure, and make Times Square a place for the walking and strolling crowds, for the people of New York City and visitors alike, as was once suggested by Mr. Tim Tompkins. This proposal seemed to me an indication that there might be 'something in the air', an awareness and desire for a little time-out, space to breathe, to come to terms with what is there and possibly enjoy a different way of experiencing the city. We can have a rehearsal for twenty-four hours.
An Invitation
There are many features in a city that make its heart beat. We often tend to take them for granted, forgetting that it takes careful consideration and many joint efforts in order to maintain the good city life, the beauty of its places and the relationships between people.
A project like this will become reality if there is a desire of everybody involved, of all of you, who live in New York, visit Times Square, work here and have your business in the area. It will happen if you want it to and if it becomes a win-win situation for all of you.
I am inviting all of you together to support this idea and initiate the Day of the Arts, the celebration of a great city square and the wonderful New York artists' community, of which all of you are part, because if nothing else, all of you and all of us are artist's of life. I cannot do it but we can. Thus I hope I see will see you soon.
Yours sincerely,.jpg)
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NEWS
ARTS SQUARE EXHIBITION
Have you been in Times Square? Are there other great big places that you care about? What did you see? What are your impressions, your feelings and your vision? I would like to invite you to share your artwork originating in the great places of the world. Make ARTS SQUARE your space.
13TH JULY ARTIST'S TIMES SQUARE NIGHT WATCH
The night of the 13th July did not seem to be under a benevolent star, in fact, there were no stars visible at all. However, a pale moon watched over the scene together with a whole legion of police. Contrary to the information I had saying that it would not be a problem to do a meditation, the island in front of the army registration office was fenced and guarded by young and eager police officers. A service clerk explained to me that later that night some trucks would be coming in, delivering stuff connected to a baseball game. He said he would lose his job if he let me in the area.
Well, I apologize to all of you who came that night and could not find me. I sat down on the north side of 44th street in the middle of the lanes of Broadway and 7th Avenue, leaning against the concrete wall of the banana flowerbed, and did what I had come to do, I watched.
Read about the experience and other stories in the diary:
www.DayoftheArts08.blogspot.com
THE STORY
Going to New York City
Back in Spring 2005 I went to New York City for the first time in my life. I made the trip for two reasons: firstly, cities and people are my passion. The other reason were my studies on cities and people, science, art and design. The questions I posed were: what are the message and the meaning of our built environment; what do we express through our design creations and what are the stories our cities tell us about ourselves. The project involved looking at places in cities face to face. I did not hesitate and I never regretted my decision concerning this city.
A Holistic Investigation
A holistic study is a little like looking at our subject from a young child's or an alien's perspective: it is an exploration from scratch, and it includes play and adventure. Admittedly, it is quite a challenge to visit New York in this rather blank minded way; it is hard to escape every bit of pre-meditated information, as New York is a grateful subject of the media all over the world at all times. The holistic lens is also comprised of artistic and scientific layers. It thus combines intuitive and rational ways of seeing.
Falling in Love on Second Guess
The first day, I walked out the door of an apartment building in the Upper West Side, loosely planning to get an impression of my immediate surroundings. I immediately felt a strong pull into a certain direction and turned south. Before long I found myself in Times Square, which might be a rather inevitable event when walking down Broadway. However, what happened was that this very place immediately put a spell on me. The moment I arrived there I realized that this was where I had to be, and I did not even particularly like it. Only a few minutes later I read on a signpost where exactly I was. I remember saying to myself, 'Well, this is a little ambitious as a subject to explore', and I felt a little nauseous. Nevertheless, Times Square was going to make me come back day after day during my stay.
Wonder and Confusion
I kept coming back, looking at billboards, people, streets, the rush, cars, buses, tiny little pink flowers, buildings, their insides, some stores and cafés - in that order. I listened to the noise of the traffic, and I listened to the rags of people's conversations and the thin cooing of the pigeons. I registered the variety of smells. I saw the place in its facets as they evolved throughout day and night. One layer after another showed itself to me, and I took notes, wrote, made sketches, painted, and took photographs. I felt shocked and awed: I was happy; I was annoyed; I was confused. I asked a lot of questions, and I visited the Internet, libraries and bookstores to dive into history and geology back to the Stone Age and beyond. I found some answers which raised more questions. I made judgments which I had to abandon in due course.
An Unsolved Riddle
When I left two weeks later, I took Times Square with me. I had assembled the pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle, and nothing was solved. I felt like I could have gone on forever and yet not know the whole picture, or get through to the core of its being. Weeks and weeks after my return I could not stop brooding. I felt that there was something looking right into my face and yet I missed it. At some point I surrendered. I dropped the science. I gave up searching, I gave up thinking. And then, one morning, literally when I was in the shower, the presence of Times Square became nearly tangible, and sent me the inspiration.
A Holographic ImageTimes Square is an exciting place of great attraction. It is also full of rush and speed and hectic, congestion and sensual impressions. It is a playground for time and energies, and it is not a square that seems to be meant to be relaxing. There are no quiet spots, no tiny corners on the edges of the streams of busy pedestrians, no benches, no trees, instead overflowing sidewalks, and never-ending traffic, and in the face of hundreds of square meters of billboards, flickering lights, and racing headlines the eye can never rest. Life on Times Square seems to occur at an accelerated pace and this coincides with the particular speed of life in Manhattan, New York City, American cities, and fast growing modern cities all over the globe. Times Square is like a splinter of a holographic image that has been broken: everything that was contained in the image is also contained in the fragment. With the exception that this particular piece seems to be brighter, faster, and more intense than any other place in any other city - it seems to be the hand-tailored template for a variety of copies.
Through the Layers
Times Square also presents itself somehow in strata, beginning from a surface of appearances through towards a depth yet unfathomable. Beneath all those layers of billboards, facades, and sensual impressions, opinions, thoughts, and all those things that exist in time and space, there is something else which is invisible to the eyes in our heads. Appearances can be deceptive but, what is it like naked? Stripped of all motion, noise, and flashing neon lights? What is like when still? What is it like when we are still? I realized that I could not answer that question on my own, and that we cannot answer that by reading what has been written about it throughout history. It takes something else and somebody else.
Another Story
And so this idea emerged: can we create a different setting for just one day, and listen to the place's hidden part of its story?
This was in 2005. I wrote the study and put the vision into my memory box. Later, people told me about silent days on Times Square that happened because of accidents, power failures and also after 9/11.
Back on Times Square
In 2007 I went back to New York City. Seeing Times Square again was like visiting an old friend, checking in on how it is doing. It was like coming home. Some things had changed, and I had changed a little as well. We did well and we got along. One very early morning the crossroads were nearly empty. I did a one-hour meditation sitting on the pavement like on an island. I saw Times Square literally in a different light. It was wonderful. After that I seriously asked myself the question: why don't we actually do it? Why don't we do it for once because we want to and not because some shocking event forces us to? There is never a better time than now.
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ARTS SQUARE EXHIBITION
Have you ever been in Times Square? Are you planning on visiting? Have you been participating in one of our arts and meditation sessions? Is there any other great big place in the world that is dear to your heart?
Would you like to share what you saw, how you felt about it? What are your impressions, your feelings and your vision? Would you like to express those in a piece of art; be it a poem, song, a drawing, painting, a dance or public art movie, a photograph, or anything else?
We would like to publish artwork originating in Times Square or the squares of the world's cities that you might like to send us. We invite you to email us your artwork in any form possible. Please photograph, scan, film or type your work, and send it as word, rtf or txt file, as pdf, jpeg, bmp or tiff-file, or quick time movie. Anything is possible. Please attach your name, home town and/or country, and add name, date and place of origination of the artwork (size optional). The information will be published in the subtitle to your work (unless you do not want us to).
This space can be your space.
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| Crossroads of the Worlds ©Silke Schilling, 2007 |
ARTS SQUARE EXHIBITION
This space can be your space.
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| Times Square Lightning ©Silke Schilling, 2007 |
Times Square Mystery ©Silke Schilling, 2007 |
Who
Silke:
I have a passion that is people and cities. I love great places with small particularities. I love lilies and daisies, forests, mountains and lakes, sun and rain. I like wandering from subject to subject, exploring society and politics, psychology and philosophy, science and spirituality, dance and music, design and health, arts and vision, outer and inner realities. The world is an inexhaustible fountain of creation and I am looking forward to more discoveries.
I used to have a life until I was presented with my personal turning point. Now I live, and the word artist embraces most of what I do, and I work with healing designs for place and people. I live in a wonderful place that used to be part of East Berlin.
Daniel:
Ok. I think with this project I will lose my reputation as a serious web business man.
Hm, why not, Silke called me "the ONE digital artist", this is a great title for me anyway.
Ja, and now I can say it: I talked with trees, and I hugged them! :-)
CONTACT/IMPRESSUM
Silke Schilling, Dipl.Ing, MSc
SoulArt and Design, www.silkeschilling.com
Webdesign:
Daniel Melle, MUT online
Photographs:©
Prof. Dr. Friedbert Bombosch, www.bombosch.net
Silke Schilling
