Multi-disciplinary artist KESH brings a visual fantasia to the screens of Times Square every night in August with eye-land, imagining a verdant world within the hyper-digital center of the city.

In eye-land, butterflies travel through a lush natural landscape in which KESH herself appears, enveloped in a colorful aura. As she recedes and reappears, the viewer is beckoned through flowers, rivers, and trees, periodically encountering a rotating chrome eye — a new adaptation of a symbol that has appeared across much of the artist’s practice.

In this work themed around metamorphosis and co-existence, KESH aims to unite the future and the past of New York City, inspired by the notion that our contemporary surroundings of concrete and manmade technologies were built by drawing on the natural resources of the earth. The buildings and billboards of Times Square become an embodiment of both modernity and the historic environment that lies beneath; by taking us on a journey into a fantastical past, KESH proposes new expressions of our future. The title itself is a twist on the word “island,” a nod to the island of Manhattan, in all of its evolutions.

“As I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I feel my feet journey across the concrete. I see buildings sprouting up like trees and often wonder — what lies beneath? What do we suppress as we grow?”
— KESH

KESH performed a live curated DJ set in Times Square on August 25 from 11pm until 12am, with the end of this set accompanying the eye-land visuals as they are displayed on 90+ billboards from 11:57pm to 12am.

eye-land is presented in collaboration with Womxn in Windows.

Midnight Moment is the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on over 90 electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight. This year, Times Square Arts is celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Midnight Moment series with a roster of all women artists until April 2023.

eye-land credits:

Executive Producer & Artist
KESH

Director
KESH

Producer
Damien Blase

Associate Producer
Armin Joseph (A.J.) Molaee

VFX Supervisor
Damien Blase

Artistic Curator
Zehra Ahmed

Editor
Damien Blase

Director of Photography
Colin Shepard

Choreography
KESH
Tydryn

Music Supervisor
KESH

Hair & Makeup
Jaime Diaz

Lighting Technician
Nicolas George Carle

Production Designers
Justin Barco
Xaivia Inniss