Masstransiscope is a public art project you can only see if you regularly travel the rails. In fact, it's a work that's so exclusive, you'll only be able to see it for about 15 seconds from looking out the eastern windows of the B and Q trains from the DeKalb Avenue station on your way into Manhattan. But see, I'm all about trumping exclusivity, so I'm gonna share these links with you so you can see it, dear readers. You see, the work has just been rehabbed and it's pretty dang cool for entertainment value alone. Taking the basics of still frame animation, but turning it around, so YOU have to move by IT to see the motion, artist Bill Brand created a pretty nice, though simple, piece. When I first saw it, I thought I was hallucinating from the new Q train smell-- (Is that really a rocketship launch I see out my window, or maybe I'm just lightheaded from the tobacco stench on the guy next to me)-- but in fact, I wasn't imagining things. The always forward thinking Creative Time sponsored this back in 1981. I guess some things really do get better with age.
Check out this link for more background information on the artist and to see the cars in their legendary graffito clad era. It's also a hoot to see some crazy young Bill Brand 'fro action.
All this is quite appropriate timing as well, given the fact NYC is just about ready to plunge into 1980s Public Transit Part Deux: The Deep End.
