Madison Square Park Turns Into Light Show With Art Installation

MADISON SQUARE PARK, NY — A new public art installation is taking advantage of the short winter days to turn Madison Square Park into a glittering light display every evening.

The new art project, titled "Whiteout," comes from the Austrian artist Erwin Redl, and was spread across the northern part of the park's lawn last week. Redl primarily works with light fixtures to create installations and artworks around the world. His latest project, commissioned specifically for Madison Square Park, uses 900 transparent white spheres, each of which has a small white LED light inside of them. These illuminated spheres are suspended just above the park's lawn using a square grid of steel poles, creating a blanket of small lights when they're illuminated.

The lights follow different patterns throughout a given night. You can watch some of those patterns here:

"I am intrigued by the Park’s option of a large-scale installation that blurs the border between the virtual and the real," Redl said in a statement. "The physicality of the swaying orbs in conjunction with the abstract animations of their embedded white lights allows the public to explore a new, hybrid reality in this urban setting."

Redl's work will stay in the park through March 25, according to the Madison Square Park Conservancy

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy / Patch