Client: Gift Shop Landlord, a private client through Blindspot Billboards

Overview

Interrupting city pedestrians with digital art billboards. 1.5K otherwise emotionally-challenged citygoers had a momentary break from their problems and were given an opportunity to smile. Joy is contagious and the project aimed to reach a culturally diverse population in an attempt to spread cohesive positive energy across gender, age, and economic demographics. Responses were activated without stress or push. Simply by energy being generated from an internal emotional place previously trapped within a mindset, organicly sharing waves of joy were able to touch the hearts of other nearby pedestrians without their conscious awareness. Hitting people at a subconscious level is gentle, warming, and subtly felt like a breath of fresh air.

Goals

The initial creation had to take into consideration the massive and attention-draining environment. A simple image was chosen to offset the power of visual overwhelm. The artist's creative struggle was to make an image that balanced Fine Art and Illustration.

Process

This project was the most difficult to complete due to the internal and external forces of resistance attempting to thwart the project's execution. The vendor was extremely considerate and understanding during the entire process. A second similar installation has ensued since, at a new Times Square site, and was a smooth experience, allowing much creative brainstorming for future and ongoing installations. 1080 x 1920 px vertical image

Additional Information

From time of project approval to installation date was 4 days an inadequate time to get the project photographed live since the artist was out of State. The images here are the actual location of the totem billboard in Times Square, and the artwork that played 358 times for a total of 6 hours. The reach of 1.5K was an incredibly good showing. The second portrait at the same location had 270 plays and got 1,232 reach. NOTE: The digital totem screen must be available and have requests for your portrait art to run. If the clients don't mind which NYC Totem they appear on, then there are thousands of totems with requests every day, so if one is offline, there are plenty of totems still online. Portrait client is informed of exact location upon permission granted so they may schedule their photographer/videographer to record the live installation.