Polar Rainbow at Times Square

Polar Rainbow is an augmented reality sculpture stretching over Times Square in June, which is Pride month in New York. I hadn’t read about this Public Art project till I saw something on a booth in Times Square that required me to download an app to view the wainbow, which I did of course, and in scanning the skies through the app, a rainbow magically appeared over Times Square!

Created by artist Kristaps Ancāns, the app says ‘the virtual rainbow connects the North and South poles where rainbows don’t exist. It connects us across time and space, signifying new beginnings, evolution and support as well as indicating togetherness and equality so that we never lose our joy and inspiration. Polar Rainbow is currently over the 74W meridian line, crossing Canada, USA, Bahamas, Haiti, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Antartica’, which luckily for me runs right over Times Square!

I discovered this app on my way to work in the morning, and here are the rainbows I found. You will notice the little ‘i’ icon on the right corner of each photograph, which is a link for a description of the app. I could not figure out how to take pictures through the app so these are all screenshots!

I had to go back after dark to see what the rainbow would look like of course. I went back with my niece, who was expecting to see a rainbow projected in Times Square, and was very amused to see it was through an app as she informed me that I could just get a rainbow filter in Snapchat. Oh well.

I discovered that every time you close the app and open it again, the rainbow appears at a different place in Times Square, hence the different pictures below.

This is such a great celebration of Pride in Times Square.

#gottalovenewyork