OURANOS, ABOVE US ONLY SKY

ANIMATION: MONIKA BRAVO, TEMPORAL 2024
COMMISSIONED BY MTA DIGITAL ART PROGRAM, GRAND CENTRAL MADISON, 47TH–48TH STREET CORRIDOR, NEW YORK

Deep beneath the city streets, stretching through the 47th–48th Street corridor, Ouranos transforms the subterranean commute into a celestial journey. Across five massive screens, a vibrant skyline merges the real architecture of New York with the “Città Nuova” of Antonio Sant’Elia and the iconic skyscraper evolutions of Hugh Ferriss. This landscape is a crystalline city in motion, reflecting the passage of time and the Promethean fire of human creativity.

The animation serves as a digital vault, echoing the famous 1913 celestial ceiling of Grand Central Terminal. Sourced from Johann Bayer’s 1603 star atlas, Uranometria, flickering constellations rotate across a sky that shifts from night to dusk. These hand-colored, re-digitized figures dance between geometric forms and flying birds, infusing the deep station with vivid yellows, blues, and pinks. Inspired by the study of praxeology, the work explores how purposeful human action and voluntary cooperation build the prosperity of our civilization.

The title pays homage to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, offering a whimsical and optimistic reminder to the thousands of daily commuters that even here, below the bedrock, there is only sky above us.