News Becomes Art in Times Tower

Over the past couple weeks, an art installation has been going up in the lobby of The New York Times's beautiful new headquarters tower. Workers have been hanging neat, symmetrical rows of L.E.D. screens from the ceiling in two parallel walls. Here's what one of them looks like:

A Times spokeswoman confirmed that the screens were part of an artwork but declined to reveal more, saying only that an announcement would be made in a few weeks. But after some prodding, here's what she sent:

The installation, called Moveable Type, is by New York artist Ben Rubin and U.C.L.A. associate professor Mark Hansen. When complete, it will be a dynamic portrait of The New York Times. Sophisticated algorithms will be used to parse the daily output of the paper (news, features, editorials) and the archives, as well as the activity of visitors to NYTimes.com (browsing, searching, commenting).

The resulting refracted view of The Times will be displayed on 560 small L.E.D. screens on both sides of the main corridor of the lobby of The New York Times Building.

The official unveiling won't take place until late October or early November.

Here's Rubin's website, and here's a more detailed look at the screens:

Photos by Robert Caplin