Recently, my friend Linda, from New Zealand, came to New York City for a visit. (She actually came because she's writing her master's thesis on the Peter Greenaway work/show that's currently taking place at the Amory, which I'm dying to see!) Anyway, having not met many Jews before arriving at my house on the Upper West Side, she was interested in how Christmas in NYC makes Jews feel given its unavoidable presence.
I could not and cannot answer this question for all Jews, (though I hope at least most would agree,) but for me, simply put, I love it. In fact, I'm delighted to be able to take part (if even just passively) in a religious tradition that adds meaning to people's lives. (Unless of course it involves extraordinarily loud music at sunrise, as is the case with the Christmas parade here in St. Maarten, which woke me up this morning. With that said, above you can see pictures from the balcony of our villa - despite the lack of snow, the atmosphere does make for a pretty spectacular Christmas feeling, eh?)
Anyway, back in NYC I appreciate the tree vendors who line the streets with spruces that give
the city the smell of a magical winter forest. I am awed by the creativity that goes into the production of the Christmas windows and I enjoy interacting with the many people from a plethora of backgroudns who are drawn out from their homes and onto 5th Avenue to see the elaborate displays no matter the temperature. I am proud to be American during the holiday season because people are so generous (albeit a bit consumer oriented) and grateful to have time to spend with family and friends. And I can't get enough of the lights that decorate all of the city's trees creating a spiritual, perhaps even mystical feeling that inspires strangers to offer each other holidays greetings as they pass on the street. All and all the city and its dwellers and visitors are happy and there is nothing better than that...
Linda understood just what I meant when she and I walked all the way from our dinner Caracas (favorite restaurant!) home. On our way we passed the usual, which I described above, as well as an awesome light installation in Madison Square Park that Seth had taken me to a few weeks earlier.
Prior to holiday time, and in day light as apposed to darkness, I had not thought of the installation as speaking to the season, and my guess is that it isn't intended to. However, seeing the installation in the context of my Christmas walk with Linda, made me realize just how poignant the exhibition is at this time of year, which is so laden with lights both literally and figuratively.
The installation, which is by Jim Campbell, has three components: Scattered Light, which is made up of hundreds of hanging light bulbs that are programmed to light up and dim down in a way that creates an illusion that people (or at least their shadows) are passing through the space that the lights occupy. The Madison Square Park website, which you can access through the link above, explains that the work is supposed to reflect the pedestrian experience in an urban environment. It's a shame that the MSP website doesn't shed more light on the work because that one sentence that describes the conceptual objective of the work seems to indicate that the city is much more lively, or vibrant than the people, though I like to think it's the people who make the city the exciting place that it is!
Regardless, to me the most interesting quality of the work is that depending on the angle from which it's viewed, the shadows, or silhouettes are either completely sharp, or rather abstract. (You can see this quality in the first minute of the video above.) I'm sure I've taken my analysis of this work too far, but to me, that feature serves as a reminder that during the "season of lights" is a time that we make an extra effort to reach out to our family and friends, so as not to allow them to turn into vague, distant characters.
The second part of the work is called Broken Window, but unfortunately both times I visited the installation, this work seemed to stick true to it's name, leaving me little to say about it. (Or is that the point?)
The third piece, Voices in the Subway Station, is made up of a number of glass panels that are situated in the grass and light up sequentially. After a bit of research, I've come to find that there are two interpretations of this work, so by all means take your pick: 1) The order in which the panels light up mimics the effect of a passing subway, as a person above ground would see it through the grated sidewalk out of the corner of his eye. 2) The lights are intended to represent people speaking to one another on a station platform as they wait for the subway to arrive, thus creating a "visual symphony," (how awesome is that term?).
As much as I enjoyed the installation, I can't help but wonder how much more meaning it would have if it was interactive, or tied to the actions of people in the park or on the subway below the park in real time. (Come on Jim Campbell, you engineer major at MIT, put that degree to good use! No, just kidding, in fact NYMag reveals just how complex the making was sans an interactive feature.) But in truth, the best part of the season of lights is that it's the time when people are most connected to each other - after all, the bells and whistles, or lights if you will, are simply tools to help us maintain a positive spirit so that we can achieve that goal...
On that note, the installation is only on view until February 28 (my birthday Part I!), so go check it out before it ends!
1. A photo from my dinky computer taken on the balcony of our St. Maarten villa somtime around Christmas eve.
2. Video footage of Scattered Lights along with an interview with the artist, courtesy of www.switched.com .
