Eyes Looking
In partnership with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) as part of FIAF’s 2016 Crossing the Line Festival, Times Square Arts will highlight the human details that bring us together with Tim Etchells’ Eyes Looking, which will appear on Times Square’s electronic billboards from 11:57 p.m. to midnight every night in October. This project is a part of Midnight Moment, a monthly presentation by the Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts.
Simultaneously a dynamic poem, a video installation, and an ephemeral sculpture, Eyes Looking creates poetry through melting text. Words made from frozen letters melt slowly across the giant screens of Times Square, with simple, everyday phrases like “eyes looking” and “hearts beating” invoking the presence of the people who cross through Times Square, the human stories at the center of the city, and the small actions that bring us together. As Etchells’ phrases lose their clarity and dissolve, they ask visitors to freeze and contemplate their relation to the rhythms and counter-rhythms of the city.