Times Square Is Getting a Heart-Beating Urban Drum for Valentine’s Day
As New Yorkers, we don’t really think of Times Square as a romantic location, but for Valentine’s Day 2015 we might just stand corrected.
Brooklyn-based architecture firm Stereotank was announced as the winner of the annual Times Square Valentine Heart Design contest, a public art competition held for the past seven years by the Times Square Alliance and the Architectural League of New York. Stereotank’s HEARTBEAT installation is an interactive, heart-beating, glowing urban drum.
The sculpture is a large red heart that glows in conjunction with the “rhythm of a strong, deep and low frequency heartbeat sound which changes its rate as visitors approach, move around and engage with it by playing various percussion instruments and joining the base rhythm of the heartbeat.” It creates what the designers call a “unique urban concert.”
HEARTBEAT is made with several percussion instruments, each of which makes unique sounds thanks to membranes of varying sizes and materials. It’s an interesting play on the rhythms of Times Square, as well as the highs and lows of love.
Sara Valente and Marcelo Ertorteguy, the architects of Stereotank, said of their public art work: “What’s common between love and music? Love is about sharing and being ‘in tune’ with somebody, so is the creation of music; a concert is a combined action where the performers are also ‘in tune’ creating harmony. Heartbeat orchestrates Times Square’s unique, active, flickering atmosphere.”
The romantic installation will open on February 9th and remain on view for a month in Father Duffy Square, between 46th and 47th Streets.
[Related: Stereotank’s Taku Tanku is a Floating Sleeping Shelter Made From Recycled Water Tanks]
[Via Bustler]
Images via Stereotank
