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‘Projecting Change’
CreditJoel Sartore and Ron Robinson/Obscura Digital
TRAVIS THRELKEL was standing on the roof of a building on Fifth Avenue and 27th Street looking uptown at his canvas. It’s hard to miss: It’s the Empire State Building, and on Saturday evening he and his collaborator, the filmmaker and photographer Louie Psihoyos, will project digital light images of endangered species onto the building in an art event meant to draw attention to the creatures’ plight and possibly provide footage for a coming documentary. Although the men refer to the event as a “weapon of mass instruction,” Mr. Threlkel explained: “We’re going to try to create something beautiful. Not bum people out.” He added later: “Hopefully, this is one big domino. If we can tip it, it would be great.”
On Saturday, using 40 stacked, 20,000-lumen projectors on the roof of a building on West 31st Street, Mr. Threlkel and Mr. Psihoyos, director of the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” will be illuminating the night from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. with a looping reel showing what Mr. Psihoyos calls a “Noah’s ark” of animals. A snow leopard, a golden lion tamarin and manta rays, along with snakes, birds and various mammals and sea creatures will be projected onto a space 375 feet tall and 186 feet wide covering 33 floors of the southern face of the Empire State Building — and beyond, thanks to cellphones and Internet connections.
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For years the landmark Empire State Building has been drawing the city’s attention with changes to the lighting scheme on its spire, and the displays have been growing more adventurous. In 2014, in honor of the retiring Yankee Derek Jeter, the building put his number, 2, up in lights at the base of the antenna. And this spring, to note the Whitney Museum of American Art’s move downtown, it interpreted famous paintings, like Warhol’s “Flowers,” with a light show running from the 72nd floor up. But actual moving images have never been displayed on the building and never with the clarity of 5K resolution.
Four years ago, Mr. Psihoyos’s Oceanic Preservation Societyhired Mr. Threlkel’s San Francisco company, Obscura Digital, to put on elaborate light shows to help draw attention to the alarming rate at which species are dying out in what Mr. Psihoyos contends is Earth’s sixth mass extinction. The men began discussing “the most dramatic thing we could do to get the world to know about what we’re losing,” Mr. Psihoyos said. They wanted to use the photography of Mr. Psihoyos’s colleagues at National Geographic, incorporate a musical element and project the images on a newsworthy facade.
The project is coming to fruition at the end of a week when wild animals have been prominent in the news, among them endangered elephants, whose plight was emphasized in a speech President Obama gave in Kenya announcing restrictions on the sale of African elephant ivory, and Cecil the lion, a tagged animal lured from a wildlife preserve in Zimbabwe, shot by an American hunter with a crossbow, then tracked and ultimately killed.
The Empire State Building was an obvious choice for the project, not only because of its high-profile global status but also because, after a refurbishing in 2009, it became known as one of the most sustainable buildings in New York.
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“The concept of incorporating art into the urban fabric and making a social statement is wonderful,” said Anthony E. Malkin, chairman and chief executive of Empire State Realty Trust, which owns and operates the building. In 2011, the top of the skyscraper was illuminated in red in recognition of the dolphin slaughter that was the focus of “The Cove.”
Mr. Malkin called Mr. Psihoyos “a fellow traveler in trying to make our time on this earth more certain for a longer period of time.”
But getting the City of New York to “buy in,” as Mr. Psihoyos put it, was more difficult. The city has strict laws regarding the projection of images on buildings, and Mr. Psihoyos’s efforts to get approval were frustrated for three years until the television producer Norman Lear, supportive of liberal causes, stepped in to assist, using his connections to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.
Mr. Psihoyos and Mr. Threlkel finally got the green light with just four weeks to put together the production. Over the previous three years, they had scouted the city for sites and put dozens of smaller, guerrilla-style street projections on billboards and institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum, some with approval and others not. The biggest so far was at the United Nations last year. The events are a part of Mr. Psihoyos’ next documentary, “Racing Extinction,” which is to have a theatrical release in the fall and then be shown on Discovery in December.
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“I’m a scale person — that’s what Louie likes about me,” Mr. Threlkel said, as he sized up the Empire State Building and the skyline from the 27th Street roof. “It’s like the Guggenheim. That’s big, right? No, man. We did that from the back of a car with one projector on it. This one, I’ve got 40 giant cannons. And I wish I had more.”
Mr. Threlkel is primarily concerned that the city’s ambient light could wash out his images.
“There’s a bit of voodoo involved,” he said. “You got to cast some spells. There are so many moving pieces that could go wrong.” During the United Nations display, some images were out of sync, but he said the problems were hard to notice and quickly fixed.
Mr. Threlkel, who designed the euphoric lighting for the Grateful Dead’s recent farewell concert, excitedly described plans for a cascade of animal images, some moving, including a sequence involving human hands that will morph into a kinetic blooming, ending with a representation of Mother Earth looking “not angry, but powerful.” There are moments that will be “psychedelic,” he said.
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“We’re using icons to help people talk about this virally,” Mr. Threlkel explained. He was particularly enthusiastic about a projection of a giant ape, not unlike King Kong, that will appear to climb the building up to the 71st floor and set off the top spiral lights, which will be in sync with the images throughout the performance. Two (real) helicopters will also circle the building. Mr. Threlkel alluded to some additional projections that may be seen on the skyline on Saturday. He is eyeing one building in particular.
The production’s costs total more than $1 million so far and are being covered in part by the philanthropic foundation created by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, said Mr. Psihoyos, who added that he would have to make up a large deficit. Another benefactor, Paul Allen, is financing a social action campaign for “Racing Extinction” through Vulcan Productions.
Still to be worked out is the release of a musical component. J. Ralph, a composer who worked on “The Cove,” has collaborated with the singer Sia on “One Candle,” and with the musician Antony Hegarty on “Manta Ray”; both songs are intended for the film and will get a sneak preview at a party on Saturday night on the 27th Street roof, where Mr. Threlkel and Mr. Psihoyos will be joined by 400 invited guests.
The Sia song will be “an anthem for our film and the movement to save species,” Mr. Psihoyos said, referring to “Racing Extinction.” “You can’t light a bigger candle than the Empire State Building.” The title is inspired by an aphorism embraced by the film: “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” They hope to stream the production live on the Internet, but details were unresolved at press time. Updates will be at racingextinction.com.
The images on Saturday night should be clear to anyone within 20 blocks downtown of the Empire State Building. Below 14th Street, the images will be visible but not as discernible.
But Mr. Psihoyos said he was counting on extending the show’s reach well beyond downtown. “The whole planet could be on the same page for once; anybody with a cellphone or computer would know about it,” he said. “To create a tipping point, you probably need 10 percent of the population. With the film and this event, we are trying to reach that number. If you hit that number, then you have a chance of moving the needle.”
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