Martin Creed’s Work No. 227: The lights going on and off consists of an empty room which is filled with light for five seconds and then plunged into darkness for five seconds. This pattern is repeated ad infinitum. In exploiting the existing light fittings of the gallery space, Creed creates a new and unexpected effect. An empty room with lighting that seems to be misbehaving itself confounds the viewer’s normal expectations. This work challenges the traditional conventions of museum or gallery display and, consequently, the visiting experience. Creed plays with the viewer’s sense of space and time and in so doing he implicates and empowers the viewer, forcing an awareness of, and interaction with, the physical actuality of the space. The work is simply titled ‘Work’ followed by a brief description and a number which forms part of the artist’s ongoing system for titling and cataloguing his work.

This work emerges from the artist’s ongoing series of investigations into commonplace phenomena. His subtle interventions reintroduce the viewer to elements of the everyday. Creed’s choice and use of materials – plain A4 sheets of paper, blu-tak, masking tape, party balloons, simple or ‘unpoetic’ language as text or as lyrics to songs – is a thoughtful celebration of the ordinary, a focused reading of the ambiguity of everyday stuff.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/creed-work-no-227-the-lights-going-on-and-off-t13868 (10.12.2020)