Grand Stage

video (continuous loop)
commissioned by the New York Transit Museum

Grand Stage (2012) investigates the terminal’s microcosm of endless social exchanges through the digital and acoustic manipulation of time. Digitally processed video loops of passengers interacting inside the main concourse are sped up and juxtaposed over a floating bed of slowly changing harmonies devoid of pulse. In essence, our visual and aural sense of time ceases to exist, allowing us an unobstructed view of the terminal as a grand public stage, where daily dramas emerge in an infinite cycle. The musical material and form of Grand Stage is extracted from Harry Von Tilzer’s “Last Night Was the End of the World,” written and recorded in 1913, which coincides with the year Grand Central Terminal was opened to the general public. The song’s lyrics make poetic reference to stars and moonlight, which reminded me of the Mediterranean sky painted on the Grand Concourse’s ceiling.