The Year's Midnight (Shadow Box 5)

Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Mexican, active in Canada, born 1967

Date2011

MediumHD plasma screen, computer, camera, and software for high-resolution interactive display with built-in computerized surveillance system

Dimensions55 x 31 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. (139.7 x 80 x 12.1 cm)

ClassificationsTime Based Media

Credit LinePurchased with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes in honor of Dr. Emily Farnham and Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, and with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), by exchange

Object number2012.9a-h

On View

Not on view

Label TextLozano-Hemmer’s new-media artwork The Year’s Midnight, inspired by John Donne’s seventeenth-century poem about Saint Lucy, patron saint of the blind, is not complete until you interact with it. As you approach the work, a tracking system and facial recognition software capture your image, and then plumes of white smoke begin to fill the screen.

When you leave, your eyes appear on the bottom of the screen beside all the other viewers of the work (with the addition of each new pair of eyes, an older pair vanishes). This turns the viewer into the viewed and records each interaction with the work as it happens.
[L. Dougherty, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceProbably created Montreal, 2011; collection of the artist; sold to NCMA, 2012.Published References0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh and Penland, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art and Penland School of Crafts, 2013), cat. no. 47, illus. (color) 103; also listed and illus. (color), 136.

North Carolina Museum of art Preview (Spring 2013), illus. (color) cover.

David Menconi, “’Real-time interaction’ with art,” Raleigh: News and Observer (April 14, 2013), discussed 1D and 6D, illus. (color) 1D.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “0 to 60: The Experience of Time Through Contemporary Art,” March 24–August 11, 2013, cat. no. 47, illus. (color) 103; also listed and illus. (color) 136.

Virginia Beach, VA, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, “charged,” September 21, 2019–February 16, 2020.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–December 5, 2023.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," December 19, 2023-April 7, 2025. Object Rights Statement

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) makes images of its collection available online to support research and scholarship and to inform and educate the public. Certain works of art, as well as the photographs of those works of art, may be protected by copyright, trademark, or related interests not owned by the NCMA. The responsibility for ascertaining whether any such rights exist and for obtaining all other necessary permissions remains with the applicant. To request images and/or permissions from the NCMA, please complete our online request form.