NEW YORK – In Tibetan Buddhism, prayer wheels are revolving metal or wooden cylinders filled with a scroll containing a mantra, or inscribed with prayers. Spinning the cylinders is considered comparable to saying the mantra, encouraging devotion and contemplation. Times Square is not a place of contemplation or devotion, aside from perhaps devotion to neon, life-size Elmos and the pursuit of giant M&Ms. Even so, street art duo Faile, in collaboration with the Times Square Alliance, created Wishing on You, a prayer wheel for our consumerist times.

The wheel is made of hand-carved and painted wood, set in the middle of a gazebo on the pedestrian plaza between 42nd and 43rd Streets. In place of spiritual mantras are pictures and phrases related to consumption, like “XXX movies,” “La Elegancia” and “Lottery.” Other symbols of our desire to acquire include ads for beer, toys made of gold and some “special deliveries” that suggest illicit pleasures for the right price.

More abstractly, a man with a dog’s head is rendered in candy-colored pastels. He’s carrying an orange-haired woman on his shoulders. She looks impossibly relaxed, leaning into an invisible breeze. There’s also a giant car, and a mermaid sitting beneath a “50% off” sign that makes it look as if she’s the object being discounted. It’s hard out there for a mermaid.

The exhibit is meant to be interactive; spin the wheel and you’ll set off the neon lights at the top. Either I need to work out more, or, much like finding peace in the middle of Times Square spinning the 7-foot-tall, heavy wheel is no easy feat.

If you’re a fan of Faile, but not of Times Square or of pushing heavy objects, you can get even more of the duo at the Brooklyn Museum for “Savage/Sacred Young Minds” exhibit, which includes, among other things, a temple and an arcade.