“Zero Noon” is a digital clock that shows the current time according to eccentric metrics: it uses hundreds of different reference systems. The clock’s statistics are all synchronized so that precisely at noon they all zero and start over. For example, the clock can tell the time based on the average number of daily financial transactions in Brazil, or the average daily amount of cookies sold by girl scouts, or the number of animal species that become extinct per day, or the daily average number of breaths that a typical human takes, and so on. Basically, Zero Noon is a clock that is run by internet-refreshed statistics. At noon automatically a new metric is displayed in a different color chosen from a determined palette. The public may also change the statistics by manually scrolling through the list using small push-buttons under the built-in display.

About the Artist

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. In 1989 he received a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. He has had solo exhibitions in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the MUAC Museum in Mexico City, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Rafael was the first artist to officially represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale. He has received two BAFTA British Academy Awards for Interactive Art in London, a Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica in Austria, the “Artist of the year” Rave Award from Wired Magazine, and a Rockefeller fellowship.