"optional features shown"

Zach Nader’s optional features shown was comprised of short segments of car commercials in which the text and representations of cars and people were digitally removed. For the 2014 March Midnight Moment, Nader deliberately misused a software tool meant to aid in the removal of minor imperfections, and the resulting visuals reflected upon the scripted nature of image creation and editing. The all context/no content aspect of the video pointed to the reliable nature of product choice and advertisement.

“I am interested in what is left after the impetus for creating the initial product is removed from the videos. What value remains?” said artist Zach Nader.

This Midnight Moment was in partnership with Moving Image Art Fair - a video, film, and new media art fair that took place March 6-9, 2014 at the Waterfront Tunnel event space in Chelsea.

“Moving Image is very excited to have an artist from this year's New York fair selected for the Midnight Moment program,” said fair co-founders Edward Winkleman and Murat Orozobekov. “Zach Nader's work is perfect for the Midnight Moment project, and we're thankful to him and Microscope Gallery for proposing what we are sure will stop thousands of people in their tracks each night through March.”

“It’s exciting for an emerging artist, who is appropriating new technologies and inventing creative ways to dialogue about consumerism, to have access to the most highly-visible and appropriate platform,” said Sherry Dobbin, Director of Times Square Arts.

Photographs by Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts.