Heart Squared
“Heart Squared represents the collective heart of the city and as such, is an engaging civic statement about celebrating our differences and bringing people together in a fundamentally inclusive way.”
— Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem, MODU
Collaborators:
MODU, Eric Forman Studio, Times Square ArtsLocation:
New York, New YorkRegion:
Genre/Discipline:
Visual artPopulation Density:
UrbanLarge Intended Impact Area:
Locality/Town/CityFoundations:
OVERVIEW
Tilted in various directions within a steel frame that evokes the outline of an anatomic heart, the 125 mirrors of Heart Squared transform the spectacle of Times Square into kaleidoscopic images of people, buildings, and brightly-lit billboards. While the position of each mirror seems random, the designers developed a specialized technique to calculate the specific angles in order to hide a playful surprise. As viewers move around the structure, those hundreds of reflections suddenly coalesce, revealing a pixel heart of urban life surrounded by a field of mirrored sky.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Heart Squared brings people together to discover the heart within — a heart that reflects anyone and everyone who engages with it, its colors and composition changing as the sun rises and sets, as billboard lights and screens shift, and as thousands of people pass by. Viewers can interact spontaneously with one another through the mirrors or find their own experiences within the piece, celebrating their love of the city and the incredible diversity of people within it.