Apollo XVIII

Marco Brambilla

Times Square Advertising Coalition, NASA

For the 2015 Midnight Moment, artist Marco Brambilla created Apollo XVIII, an ambitious video installation that weaves archival footage from real NASA missions with computer-generated imagery to present an impressionistic journey to the moon and back.

Apollo XVIII re-interpreted mankind’s relationship with space exploration in the electronic age. At the close of the Apollo program and the dawn of journeys to Mars, as expedition technologies segue from hybrid manned-electronic to virtual models, the NASA Program acts as a metaphor for the shift from physical to surrogate modes of exploration. Apollo XVIII presented the countdown to an imagined lift-off of a Saturn V rocket across Times Square’s spectacular screens. The fictional mission combined both real, archival footage and virtual renderings to present a new collective viewing experience that placed the public at the foot of a new frontier.

#ApolloXVIIITSq

Marco Brambilla Studio
Anastasia Rogers, Studio Manager
Richard Massee, Producer
Beau Dickson, VFX Art Director
Akiko Iwakawa, Editor
Jennifer Yiu-Chen Yang, Lead After Effects Artist
Thomas Heckel, After Effects Artist
Cecilia Stucker, Research
Jack Mintz and Julia H Burlingham, Research Assistants
Ntropic
Nate Robinson, Executive Creative Director
Ron Moon, HOP
Fawn Fletcher, Producer
Simon Mowbray, Creative Director
James McCarthy, Design & VFX Artist
Robert Williams, CG Artist
Jerome Knight, Flame Assist
Human Worldwide
Marc Altshuler, Producer
Gareth Williams, Sound Designer
Photographs courtesy of Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts