Love is frenetic, gut-wrenching, joyous and tumultuous feeling; that vibrancy of emotions and sensations is what Heart Throb aspires to in architectural form. A heart is something alive, like love it constantly changes adjusts and varies to the vagaries of life. Heart Throb captures this dynamic state by engaging with visitors, technology and our expectations of what Valentine’s Day means within contemporary consumer culture. Not only is it a tactile heart but one that challenges spatial expectations by creating a series of elements that push the boundaries of architecture. Thus the installation showcases the valentine heart in various forms and various states of legibility, at times its fully figured, other times its momentary and fleeting and sometimes it can only be captured from specific views, not allowing everyone to gain access to it unless they are looking for it.
Heart Throb is a composed of various parts. There is the infrastructure which is to remain relatively minimal but support a wide array of spatial affects. This becomes the base for the giant inflatable which formally engages the iconic heart in a large soft form. Around the inflatable are a swarm of ephemeral elements.
In keeping with the beating of the heart and moments of heightened fluttering we plan to choreograph the release of the space filling elements. The drone cupids will perform their day and night dances every 60 minutes, steam/smoke released every 10 minutes and the I LOVE NY photograph taken every 15 minutes. The spectacle of each event will come in and out of sequence, some hours all events will occur at the same time other points only one event at a time.
Around the knotted heart inflatable space is thickened through the use of airborne materials including smoke and drones. They are elements that reinterpret what architecture and space can be but communicate to a much broader audience the possibilities of Times Square.