By Patrick Clark 1/01 5:06pm

Clocking out

the clock

Ringing in the New Year at MoMA With Christian Marclay’s The Clock

Time passes, which is the point of Christian Marclay’s much-talked-about installation The Clock. The work, a 24-hour cinematic loop composed of sequences appropriated from the last century of film, chronicles this passing in real time, as they say. An alarm clock sounds, a movie star eats breakfast; a wristwatch ticks, actors wait for a train. Some reviewers were surprised that watching time pass could be so captivating, although they might not have been if they’d thought back to any old New Year’s Eve, when the world’s citizens fixate on their clocks. Read More

By The Editors 1/03/12 7:37pm

Opening Shot

Mayor Bloomberg and Lady Gaga ringing in the new year.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and We Feel Fine

It’s 2012, and according to the Mayan calendar and that documentary about John Cusack trying to save his family by piloting a plane out of New York, we’ve come to the tail end of mankind’s history on this planet. Since we don’t know exactly how many more months (or weeks? or—gasp!—days!?!) we have left until the meteor strikes and obliterates us like it did those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (here’s hoping some mosquitoes carrying our DNA get trapped in amber!) we’ve decided to look on the bright side of this new year. After all, it may be the last one we’ve got.

And what a New York New Year’s Eve it was! Read More

By Drew Grant 1/02/12 8:57am

Sleep No More

Happy New Year, everyone!

Sleep No More 2012: Ringing In the New Year With the Thane of Cawdor at the McKittrick Hotel

Nothing screams “The Mayans will be proven wrong this year!” quite like watching a young man swing from the rafters after hanging himself in a very loose adaptation of Macbeth, but for fans of the interactive production Sleep No More, there was no better way to ring in 2012. After getting an invitation from the Thane himself asking for our attendance a special gold and silver party at the McKittrick Hotel–where Sleep No More has been in residence since March with co-production companies PunchDrunk and Emursive–we arrived up not knowing quite what to expect.

Would we be allowed to remove our Eyes Wide Shut Italian Renaissance-style masks and talk after midnight, or, going with the show’s traditional rule, would we be forced into an anonymous silent cheer when the countdown reached zero? Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 12/22/10 10:26pm

location-based

When the Ball Drops, Times Square Wants You to Check In on Facebook Places

Apparently the Times Square Alliance doesn’t buy local.

The Alliance, which coordinates the ball-dropping ceremony for New Year’s Eve, has essentially given free advertising space on a giant electronic billboard in the middle of Times Square to Facebook to the detriment of one of New York’s brightest companies.

The billboard is encouraging people to check in Read More