Conductor (2011) by Alexander Chen. Video capture. View live at: mta.me

Conductor turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA’s actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute, then continues accelerating through a 24 hour loop. The visuals are based on Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 diagram.

Music? New York City? Maps? (And not just any map … Vignelli’s 1972 subway map!) The ability to “play” this map as a musical instrument? Information as art / music / play? Beautiful, elegant, and simple?

Doesn’t get much cooler than this, folks.

Christoph Niemann’s move to Berlin (after 11 years in New York) left him feeling homesick, but he appears to have found a dose of comfort in his son’s LEGOs. The latest entry at his Abstract City blog at The New York Times shows us the New York of a playful mind and brilliantly reveals the [...]

Great article in today’s New York Times on Mike and Doug Starn’s installation in the South Ferry subway station. Plenty of interesting details on the piece, its method and meaning, but I found this part most inspiring: When the Starns were first approached by the Arts for Transit program in fall 2004, they were busy [...]