British artist Martin Creed introduced a controversial installation in 1995: an empty room in which the lights turn on and off at 5-second intervals.

Critic David Lee said, “Last year, the Tate was scraping the barrel. This year they are scraping the scrapings … A light being switched on and off is not a good work of art.” But when Creed submitted the work for the Turner Prize, the jury praised its “strength, rigour, wit and sensitivity to the site.”

Work No. 227: The lights going on and off was followed in 2000 by Work No. 254: The lights in a building going on and off — in which a building’s lights go on or off each second.