Imagine iconic Times Square in New York City, with all its screens, tickers and billboards - blank. Now imagine all that blank space as canvas projecting nothing but art. Welcome to the dream of Justus Bruns, the 22-year-old creator of the nonprofit Times Square to Art Square (TS2AS), a project with a simple goal: to turn all the billboards at the "crossroads of the world" into art for one day.

"This is about dreaming to make the impossible possible," the recently-graduated design Dutch student says. Bruns, who had never even been to New York until last summer, dreamed of a way that the public could access more art on a daily basis, just like it encounters ads on a daily basis.

 It dawned on Justus that with the power of social media, his dream could become a reality. Inspired, he whipped up an impressive website in just one night. Within 24 hours the manager of all art projects on Times Square called to give him one piece of advice: “Keep building momentum.” Fans can join the cause and spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, and make donations directly to the website. So far the grassroots project has amassed nearly $3,000 of the $10,000 goal; but with the price tag for a one-day buyout estimated at $24 million, one may wonder how this project will actually materialize by the target of Fall 2012.

MutualArt.com spoke with Bruns to uncover the details of his grand plan.

When you initiated the idea last December, what was your motivation behind the project?
Some ideas just pop into your head - you’re putting on your shoes and then you have this idea - and my main idea was actually just to have more art, and especially on billboards. It’s a bit sad that you have to pay $15 to see a couple of art pieces in one museum while advertising you see on a daily basis; so why cannot there be more space for art as there is already for advertising? That’s the way of thinking I had from the beginning. So we narrowed the project down to Times Square because it stands for advertising. New Yorkers really stuck to the idea because most people say that Art Square would be more “New York-ish” than when it’s just Times Square.

Describe your online and offline activities to market your vision.
We organized events in Amsterdam and New York, exposing both national and international artists. It was successful in both cities, with 400 people at each event, and now we are planning parties in Budapest and Berlin, and hopefully Tokyo and Tel Aviv. Also we will launch augmented reality apps for smart phones so if you stand on Times Square you can see how Art Square will appear. We also want to partner with two New Zealanders whose binoculars recognize advertising and turn it into art, to show how the square will look in 3-D.

Online, we try to make our website not only about Times Square but also about interviewing people from new media and the art scene. So far the artists we have interviewed are not as well-known, but very up and coming. It’s really about spreading art and having more people think about creativity in general. What we hope to do with this project is get more people looking at the stars, and dreaming and thinking as kids and looking at problems as things that will be cool to solve.

How will you select the art that will appear? How many have sent in works?
We’re still working on what will be the selection process. We want to make sure some art will be really ugly, but can trigger you somehow - so if we did a YouTube system then people would not select that work - but it will make people think from a different perspective. We definitely need a team of good curators, and artists - known and unknown to involve. Now on our website we ask artists to design their own art square because it’s not just about changing just one billboard, it’s about the whole Times Square being one artwork. I think so far 40 artists or so have submitted works, but most of them upload just one canvas or sculpture, and we cannot put it online because it would give the wrong impression. So we remain vague because we want to have really creative and mind-blowing art squares on our website.

Justus Bruns; Times Square in the background

How will the art be coordinated?
Maybe we will have some expositions inside the buildings, so we are now working with several architectural companies to plan a sort of biennale or exposition. If we have just one day, maybe we will do each hour or two another artwork; for example, instead of programming each separate billboard, we were thinking of wrapping up the whole Square, taking big panels like Christo does, and using big projectors to display the art.

Are you satisfied with the rate of donations?
I’m really satisfied, because we already have enough money from the pre-parties, so there’s no stress at all on that side. It may look funny to have only $2,000 on the website, but that’s the mistake we made by focusing on getting the donations, when it’s actually about getting people involved and submitting work. On January 6th we are planning a Donation Day, which is more a ‘spreading the word’ day. Even if we don’t make the goal it’s still fabulous to go on because we have such a great team and a really great spirit.

What will $10,000 buy? One-day billboard buyout could cost about $24 million.
The main goal is that each dollar that we get we try to multiply. We have creative agencies that get a small amount for costs so they can spread the word about donations. And we might use a part of it for setting up the architectural team and launching the smart phone apps.

The big mistake people make is they think we are going to spend $24 million for one day’s time, which would be a totally unsubstantial way of spending money. The idea is we reach out to millions of people online; those people say they want Times Square to be Art Square for just one day; then we approach the advertisers and they love the project and want to support it and pay for the billboard for one day - but instead of their logos in it there’s art. In exchange they get the credit and more exposure. They receive free press attention and get to show that they are not only about making money but also about inspiring people.

Some may call this crazy. Do you think it’s naïve?
Tremendous things start off as being naïve or crazy, but that actually motivates me to prove people wrong - in a positive way - showing you might be able to follow and realize your dreams. A lot of people were laughing at me in the beginning, and now they see the attention that it gets and the momentum it is building and they want to join the team. I myself never thought it would grow so fast. There is a lot of energy and electricity going on. So I’m extremely positive about having people say [it’s crazy] because after a while those people are getting more interested in the idea and that’s the most important thing.

Written by MutualArt.com staff