'Sleepwalkers' exhibit projected on NY's MOMA

NEW YORK, Jan 20 (Reuters) Never has working nights in New York City been so arty.

That's thanks to a new video exhibit entitled ''sleepwalkers,'' depicting fictional workers headed to their late-hour jobs, projected onto the outside walls of The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan.

Passersby can stop to watch the free performance each evening after dark until mid-February.

Extending up several stories across multiple screens, ''sleepwalkers'' depicts a bicycle messenger, an electrician, a postal worker, a businessman and an office worker as they sleep, awake and make their way to their jobs as the sun sets over New York City.

''You progress from the private to the public, a moment of transit and movement that takes you into where these people are working,'' said creator Doug Aitken at the exhibition's opening this week.

''I wanted to work with five very diverse characters and see them coming from different aspects of the city,'' he said.

Best known among the cast are actor Donald Sutherland who plays the businessman, British actress Tilda Swinton who plays the office worker, and Brazilian actor and musician Seu Jorge as the electrician.

KALEIDOSCOPE-LIKE Each of the five silent narratives is 13 minutes long. They continuously recombine over the course of the evening, juxtaposing the characters differently in every performance.

Aitken, 38, compared the work to a kaleidoscope.

''I wanted to create very separate characters and explore their connections almost through movement and place,'' he said.

''The characters are as diverse as possible and, as these stories come closer and closer together, you see the shared lines, the connections.'' The installation is scheduled to be projected on the outer glass, steel and granite facades of the museum from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. nightly through February 12.

The exhibition can be seen best from the museum's outdoor Sculpture Garden, which will be open to the public at no charge.

''I'm very interested in having someone pass by, not knowing this work is even here, and seeing it and perhaps being attracted and walking in and spending time with it,'' Aitken said.

Applauding the public art project at its opening, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: ''It provokes thought and causes us to look at our environment in many different ways.'' ''It really is what makes New York New York,'' he said.

The California-born Aitken has done earlier works across multiple screens, including ''electric earth'' which won the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999.

In 2000, his ''glass horizon'' installation projected a pair of eyes onto the facade of the Vienna Secession building at night and, in 2001, his exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery used the entire building for his installation ''new ocean.'' REUTERS SY DS1020