The countdown is on to the launch of Apollo 18 and you're invited to
witness it from New York City's Times Square.
Beginning at 11:57 p.m. EST on Sunday (March 1), more than a dozen of
Time Square's iconic electronic billboards will broadcast the final
minutes ticking down to the launch of a towering Saturn V rocket on a
historic mission to land astronauts on the moon.
Can't be there on Sunday? No problem. The three-minute countdown will
be repeat every night throughout the month of March.
"
Apollo XVIII," created by artist Marco Brambilla, weaves archival footage from
real NASA missions with computer-
"The space age represented a landscape of optimism, capturing the
imagination of the public," Brambilla said in a statement announcing
the month-long installation. "With Apollo XVIII I hope to recapture
the golden age of manned space travel as a spectacle, presenting Times
Square as the virtual launch site."
Apollo XVIII uses the countdown to an imagined Saturn V lift-off to present
a "new collective viewing experience that will place the public at
the foot of a new frontier."
Juxtaposing the space race with the rise of digital media, Apollo XVIII
reinterprets humankind's relationship to space exploration in the
electronic age.
At the close of Apollo and the dawn of
journeys to Mars, as expedition technologies transition from hybrid manned-
Test footage shared with collectSPACE shows a
Saturn V rocket climbing skyward along the 25-story-tall American Eagle Outfitters billboard
that towers over Broadway.
"Brambilla's mythical mission combines the memory and romance
of past space travel with the frightening velocity of the rocket,"
Sherry Dobbin, Times Square Arts director, stated. "Only in Times
Square can one recreate the scale and magnitude of such an experience."
The video also included imagery of a helmeted astronaut and an Apollo
lunar module over the moon.
"'Apollo XVIII' [is] the most ambitious project yet from
Marco Brambilla: a fabricated mission of iconic moments from past and
present, extrapolating a virtual experience of the future," Michael
Fuchs Galerie, partner to Midnight Moment in March, stated. "Apollo
XVIII asks the question: is this a real mission, is it fact or fiction?"
In addition to American Eagle's billboards, Apollo XVIII will be shown
on 14 other large electronic signs, including on the NASDAQ Tower, the
Disney Store, Bank of America and on the Thomson Reuters sign adjacent
to One Times Square, the home of the famous New Year's Eve Ball.
"Brambilla's piece reminds us of Times Square's place at the
cutting-edge of technological innovation and cultural exploration,"
stated Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance. "Apollo
XVIII will immerse Times Square in the future of space travel and bring
the neighborhood to new heights through its innovative imagery."
Though Apollo XVIII is the first space exploration-themed installment
since the Midnight Moment program premiered in May 2012, it is not the
first time that NASA imagery has appeared in Times Square. Just a week
before Apollo 11 made the
first manned moon landing on July 20, 1969, an 18-story-tall Saturn V rocket (about half its actual
size) was projected on the east side of One Times Square (then known as
the Allied Chemical Tower).
More recently, crowds gathered in Times Square on Aug. 5, 2012, to watch
the landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. And in 2014, Toshiba
marked the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission with special video
countdowns in Times Square timed to the exact moments that the Eagle touched
down at Tranquility Base and when astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first
step onto the moon.
Billboards showing Apollo XVIII
The following Times Square digital screens are participating in the Midnight Moment:
- ABC Super Sign
- American Eagle Times Square
- Bank of America
- Branded Cities 7 Times Square
- Branded Cities 1 Times Square
- Branded Cities NASDAQ Tower Times Square
- Branded Cities Thomson Reuters
- Outfront Media 1515 Broadway/ Viacom North & South
- CEMUSA
- City Outdoor
- Clear Channel
- Spectacolor HD127/CNN
- Clear Channel Spectacolor HD128
- Disney Store Spectacular
- Superior Digital Displays Three Times Square #5