Realtime/Interactive
Uptown Underground
IAN CALLENDER
Uptown Underground projects a geographically accurate view of the cityscape above a subway car onto its ceiling as it moves under New York City. Temporary deployments have been installed, without permission, on a series of moving subway wagons from Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall to 96th Street stations, a roughly 10 kilometer/25-minute loop along the East Side of Manhattan. Once the intervention is switched on, it runs itself, battery-powered and informed by data streams from a cell phone in order to remain in synchronization with the world above. Imagining seeing through the ceiling to the street and becoming aware of such a dynamic perspective offers restored connection with and newfound dynamic contextualization within the city. Those on the train tend to put down their cell phones and, with excitement and curiosity, look up.