Project Neon

May 4, 2011 5:22 PM

Project Neon is an attempt to document the neon signs of New York City.

A free iPhone app is in the works, for which there is a Kickstarter page. Via Laughing Squid

posted by brundlefly (9 comments total)

Neon is great, and documenting it is a fine idea, especially since it's slowly but surely vanishing from the urban landscape. Here in Tokyo, for example, amazing, brilliant neon facades have long been the norm for the ubiquitous pachinko parlors (some of my own documentation of that here), but they are being rapidly supplanted by much more pedestrian facades that don't use neon.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:06 PM on May 4, 2011

My dreamworld includes the neon of Film Noir, New York, and the film 'Streets of Fire.'

One of Sydney's landmarks is the King's Cross Coke Sign, a giant Coca Cola sign above our red light district
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:57 PM on May 4, 2011

Pedanticfilter: neon glows red, and red only. Those signs are made with a variety of noble gases.
posted by e.e. coli at 7:57 PM on May 4, 2011

So cool! I had to share this link with my L.A. neon artist friend. He has video of one of his installations - it's in the elevator shaft of a glass elevator with mirrors
posted by Surfurrus at 8:14 PM on May 4, 2011

It's not just noble gases. Mercury - as a UV-emitting vapor - is used in most of the coated glass tubes, but neon certainly can drive some of the shades of red.
posted by jet_silver at 8:16 PM on May 4, 2011

Nice Post

Nice Post

Nice Post
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:02 AM on May 5, 2011

I love neon.
Thanks, brundlefly.

As Dan Flavin has shown so well, neon is not just beautiful line drawing with colors. It's an almost alive pulsation that includes you in its glow. That's why I have tried to shoot some in short-short videos. (IANAP: I am not a photographer.)
posted by bru at 6:24 AM on May 5, 2011

I took a neon class in NYC years ago, down near Chinatown. At lunchtime we wandered around the neighborhood. There were a lot of signs in Chinese, which seemed to me to be a lot more intricate and harder to bend than English signs.
posted by MtDewd at 8:46 AM on May 5, 2011

Neon Boneyard, Las Vegas
posted by brundlefly at 9:11 AM on May 25, 2011