OFFLINE
MTA Arts & Design announces OFFLINE, a new digital art commission by Nancy Baker Cahill, now on view on the five monumental screens at the Long Island Rail Road Grand Central Madison concourse through January 2027. Transforming the concourse into an underground terrain, OFFLINE presents an unnaturally beautiful landscape in which 40 endangered or extinct species drift into focus before dissolving out of view. The landscape glides past, replicating the sensation of gazing out a train window.
The three-minute artwork is composed from Baker Cahill’s signature Slipstream drawing sculptures whose botanical-like forms blur the lines between hand-drawn and digital compositions. Layering graphite and neon graffiti-paint drawings, the artwork features real and simulated fireflies, spider webs, and vivid plumes of smoke and fog to create this speculative environment. The work draws on the artist’s childhood memories of long road trips, during which she spent hours observing the passing landscapes and imagining creatures in clouds, patterns in passing trees, and the lives of people in the homes along the route.
“Our imaginations are a precious resource and will prove critical to navigating the real-world challenges outside train windows,” said artist Nancy Baker Cahill . “The landscape I offer is not a utopia, but a layered blend of beauty and toxicity. To honor MTA Arts & Design’s 40th anniversary, I embedded 40 endangered or extinct species of flora and fauna to underscore the precarity of real-world ecosystems, and to invite creative, remediative interventions in the worlds vanishing around us.”
“OFFLINE captures what Arts & Design has done for four decades: meeting millions of riders where they are and turning an everyday journey into a moment of wonder,” said Tina Vaz, Director, MTA Arts & Design. Nancy’s imagined world doesn’t ask riders to look away from their commute but invites them to look closer. Her tribute to 40 vanishing species is not only a touching way to mark our 40th anniversary — it's a reminder that what we choose to notice, and what we choose to save, are closely linked.”
OFFLINE plays approximately every five minutes throughout the day as part of Arts & Design’s Digital Art program, which presents moving-image artworks at key transit hubs including Grand Central Madison and Fulton Center. The artwork was produced with support from Local Formations.
©2024 Nancy Baker Cahill Studio. All rights reserved.