Midnight Zone, 2025

An architecture for the boundary zone between land and sea, the figure of the lighthouse has historically been both a portent of danger as well as a promise of safe harbor. Standing on the last terrestrial vestige before giving way to the unknown of the ocean, it uses compact composite lenses to cast messages silently and across vast distances. It projects our presence across waters which both divide and unify us, separating land masses while also sinewing them together as a whole. Rejecting our species’ preoccupation with the surface of the Earth’s oceans, Julian Charrière’s Midnight Zone slips beneath this barrier, sinking a Fresnel lens down 1,000 meters into the aquatic biome of the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, responding with a deep exploration.

Resurfaced, the installation Midnight Zone features this same lens as the eponymous video. Suspended in the museum, the lantern casts a revolving beam of light across the walls clad in undulating reflective foil—fracturing and extending the beam infinitely. Set in a fine haze, it recalls the spectral glow of a lighthouse piercing mist-laden seas, yet the mirrored structure refuses stillness.

Fluctuating from harmonic to chaotic, the disturbances influence both the glow and spin of the lighthouse lens as well as vibrations in the archi­tecture, triggered by a composition crafted from deep-sea anthropogenic sound pollution recordings. The low-frequency hum of container ships, the seismic blasts of air-pres­sure cannons searching for fossil fuels, the grinding reverberations of seabed mineral extraction, sonar pulses, and the industrial drone of offshore wind farms—all sounds that disrupt marine ecosystems—are translated into physical vibrations. Just as deep-sea creatures, dependent on sound for navigation and survival, are disoriented by these intrusions, the reflections in Midnight Zone disorientate and confuse, mirroring the unseen turmoil beneath the ocean’s surface.

By rendering the imperceptible visible, Midnight Zone immerses visitors in the fragile soundscape of the deep sea. It translates sound into image, noise into light, creating a visceral parallel between disruption and reflection. The installation transforms the gallery into a space of contemplation, urging us to reconsid­er our impact on the ocean’s hidden realms—worlds we rarely see, yet irrevocably shape.

 

Credits
Composition: Victor Mazón Gardoqui
Audio Visual System Engineering: Victor Mazón Gardoqui
Architecture & Design: Bryce Edwards
Underwater Lighting Development & Engineering: Christophe Leclercq
Fresnel Lamp Design & Fabrication: Dan Spinella
Fresnel Lamp Casing Supervision: Jacob Sixl (Heinz Fritz GmbH)