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Every time a New Yorker steps onto the subway, it's not just a ride from point A to point B. It's also a data point. And it's also a story.
A transfixing new art installation by designer Giorgia Lupi now tells those stories on 52 digital screens playing at the top of each hour inside Lower Manhattan's Fulton Transit Center. Rendered in black and white, the animation called A Data Love Letter to the Subway illustrates the visual poetry of the infrastructure that keeps the city moving.
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Many subway trains meet up at Fulton Center, a fact Lupi renders with black lines with colorful dots representing each train. Some trains, she writes, spent time underground, while others see the sun. The A and C lines travel together for many miles, but then go their own ways through twists and turns, the artwork shares. Though the story is told through black-and-white imagery and text, its descriptions cleverly anthropomorphize the trains and their journeys.
"I wanted to turn the trains we ride every day into living characters, revealing the hidden choreography and small connections we share underground," she tells Time Out. "It's a reminder that even the most familiar system can hold wonder if you look at it differently; it's about seeing the subway, and our daily journeys, with a bit more poetry and wonder."
We're all part of the same story.
As for people, they also travel together, then break away from each other. Lupi highlights missed connections, moments where "we locked eyes for an eternity" or "you smiled at me, and I smiled back" before descending into the cavernous halls and tunnels of the subway system.
"We're all part of the same story," as the artwork says.
To create her love letter, Lupi extracted data from the MTA's trove of records, including each train line's age, length and path. She then rendered the data with a hand-drawn quality, evoking picture books and the feel of vintage maps.
This commission was a chance for Lupi, a partner at Pentagram Design, to imagine the subway system beyond a static informational map. The project helps commemorate the 40th anniversary of MTA Arts and Design.