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yilin ye

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Week 3Feb 4- Feb 10, 2025
San Juan Heal | Public Art Visit  

For this week’s public art visit, I went to Lincoln Center for San Juan Heal, by Nina Chanel Abney, as the Street façade of David Geffen Hall. 

My previous coursework in "Reconstructing Lost Spaces" had introduced me to the area's history - particularly how the Upper West Side's San Juan Hill, once a vibrant Black and Hispanic neighborhood, was displaced during Lincoln Center's construction.

Visiting in the evening offered a distinct perspective, though the street lighting couldn't fully replicate the artwork's daytime impact. 

What immediately drew my attention were the vibrant characters and the bold text "SAN JUAN HILL." Other prominent textual elements included "1947," "SHELTER," "THE CHARLESTON," and the provocative "URBAN RENEWAL?" I got intrigued, what happened in 1947? And what is Shelter referring to? I’ve heard about Charleston but what exact is it? 

Some of the answers could be found on the Lincoln Center website:
  • 1947— completion year of Amsterdam House, a housing projects in upper west sides, marks the change of San Juan Hill. 
  • The Charleston, James P. Johnson’s (who is also featured) composition; The Charleston dance got first popularized in San Juan Hill before it traveled across the world
  • ....






Throughout the installation, various characters are accompanied by capitalized letters, which I correctly assumed were initials representing significant figures from the neighborhood's history, including:
  • Benny Carter, the influential jazz musician
  • Elizabeth Tyler, a notable community figure
  • Barbara Hillary, the pioneering explorer

A brief introduction to the artwork, displayed on an LED screen adjacent to David Geffen Hall, explained that this Lincoln Center commission serves a deeper purpose. The artwork's complete narrative, detailed on their website, reveals the layered meanings behind each textual and visual element. 

"San Juan Heal" effectively uncovers the "lost story" of this space - a narrative of a vibrant Black and Puerto Rican community where rich musical and dance traditions were born and flourished. 

While acknowledging the practical constraints involved in such a project, I found myself wishing for an even bolder approach to reclaiming and representing this historical space.

VideoPlayback | TouchDesigner Tutorial

Through the tutorial, we learned the video playback using different operators:

TOP: moviein, audiodevin
CHOP: slider, switch, button, null, math, mousin, keyboardin, select

  • import various movie files, and bring them together through Comp (composite) which can change the effect of multiple videos coming together.
  • used different CHOPS as speed references manipulate the video


Week 2Jan 28- Feb 3, 2025




Week 1Jan 21- 27, 2025
Shower | Double Take Public Art Project

co-created with Josh Sun, Sai Ram Ved Vijapurapu. 

installed at Astor Place/ Cooper Square, Manhattan, NY
 
©yilin yeto imagine and reimagineNY | Sept 2024
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