MacDowell Presents: Midnight Moment in Times Square

Program Participants

Peter Burr is an artist from Brooklyn, NY who transforms complex computational systems into emotional, sensory experiences through large-scale immersive environments. Drawing from early experiments with computational graphics in the mid-nineties, Burr's practice has evolved to incorporate techniques that merge fundamental computing operations with modern real-time rendering systems. His work frequently explores the relationship between human-machine interfaces and the underlying systems that drive them. His practice has been recognized through grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Grant, and a Sundance New Frontier Fellowship. His work has been presented at major cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Barbican Centre, Documenta 14, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Pompidou. Throughout his career, Burr has maintained an active presence in the computational arts field, with exhibitions in over 25 countries. He regularly presents his research at institutions including past keynotes at Yale University and Ars Electronica. He is a current PhD candidate in video games at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Pamela Council is an interdisciplinary artist using sculpture, writing, and performance to create multisensory dedications. They transform collections of everyday materials and forms with dark humor and bright colors, creating an Afro-Americana camp aesthetic that is playfully cathartic. Council has created commissions for The Studio Museum in Harlem, Times Square Alliance, and VOLTA NY. Council’s exhibition history includes Aldrich Art Museum, New-York Historical Society, MoCADA, and The New Museum for Contemporary Art. Council has been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, ISCP, Mass MoCA, and more. Pamela Council is an alumnus of Columbia University (MFA), and Williams College (BA), which awarded Council the 2022 Bicentennial Medal as a distinguished alumna. They are a recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Kambui Olujimi was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Columbia University and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as “inevitabilities”. This pursuit takes shape through interdisciplinary bodies of work spanning sculpture, installation, photography, writing, video and performance. His works have premiered nationally and internationally at Sundance Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art, LACMA, Sharjah Biennial 15, 14th Dak’Art Biennale, and Kunsthal Rotterdam, among others. Olujimi has been awarded grants, fellowships and residencies from The Andrew Mellon Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Black Rock Senegal, MacDowell, and Yaddo. His current solo exhibition, North Star is on view at San Jose Museum of Art through June 1, 2025.

Charlotte Kent, PhD is an arts writer based in New York City and Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Head of Visual and Critical Studies at Montclair State University. She is co-editor of Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art (Intellect Books 2024), an Editor-at-Large for The Brooklyn Rail, and regularly contributes to general audience and academic publications. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities' Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities, and Google's Artist + Machine Intelligence program. In 2023, she was the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at NXT Museum, where she co-curated Lilypads: Mediating Exponential Systems. She serves on the College Art Association’s Committee for Intellectual Property, and has been a mentor for Hyundai ArtLab Editorial Fellowship (2024), a regular judge for Creative Capital, and established the Artist Fellowship for the National Arts Club, NYC where she was on the Board of Governors. She is a graduate of the CUNY Graduate Center, St. John’s College, and Philips Academy, Andover. She currently lives in New York City.

Presented by Times Square Arts nightly to millions of viewers each year, Midnight Moment showcases the work of contemporary artists on one of the world’s most iconic canvases—the electronic billboards of Times Square in New York City, where an average of 360,000 pedestrians pass through daily. Since its launch in 2012, Midnight Moment has featured the work of artists including Burr, Council, and Olujimi as well as David Hockney, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Joan Jonas, Nick Cave, and Rashaad Newsome. Synchronized on over 90 billboard screens in the heart of Times Square nightly from 11:57 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., Midnight Moment reaches 1.5 million viewers a year.