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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican-Canadian artist who well known for its large-scale installations and customized interfaces make by the widest range of media. His main interest is in using technology to create participatory public platforms, such as robotics and computer monitoring. Much of his inspiration comes from hallucinations, revelry, and animation. Lozano Hemmer thinks that most platforms have limitations, so he always been trying to create an interactive platform with multiple possibilities.1 ”Pulse-baed" work and "Relational Architecture" are two representative series of works by Lozano Hemmer,  and “Pulse Room” and “Body Movies” are two famous pieces from these two series. Through these two works, Lozano Hemmer seeks to illustrate how digital devices can effectively be used to create communication and participation between people situated in different Spaces. His works are temporarily changing the relationship between people, space and technology while challenging our traditional and deep-rooted concepts of reality.

1."Artist Biography." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/bio.php.

2. Ponzini, Monica. “Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Relational Architecture • Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture.” Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture. February 09, 2016. Accessed December 05, 2018. http://digicult.it/design/rafael-lozano-hemmer-relational-architecture/.

The quest to explore the connection between people and space through digital devices has remained constant in the artistic work of Lozano Hemmer. Pulse-based works was a series of artworks that created by Lozano Hemmer since 2006. Through pulse-based work, Lozano sought to pay more attention to the creation of group experiences rather than individual electronic art encounters, thus this series of works requires people interact with it to gain completion and to be understood in the true sense. Pulse Room is one of the most representative works in the Pulse-based series, and it was made in 2006 as the beginning of the pulse-based works that have been exhibited in several museums around world, included Museum of 21st Century Art (Kanazawa), Colección/Fundación Jumex (Mexico City) and MONA Museum (Hobart). The Pulse Room is an interactive device with one to three hundred transparent incandescent bulbs of 300 watts which are suspended from a three-meter high cable. The bulbs are evenly distributed throughout the exhibition room and fully filled the room. There is an interfaces placed on one side of the room where placed sensors that used to detect participants' heartbeats. Through this interface, the artist seeks to make a connection and give the participants a singular form of experience as opposed to the collective form of experience which has high chances of getting lost in the universality of its being. When someone holds the interface, the computer detects participator pulse and immediately displays the exact rhythm of his or her heartbeat on the nearest light bulb. When the interface is released, all lights are briefly turned off, and the sequence of flashes moves one position forward from the queue to the next bulb in the grid. Whenever someone touches the interface, the heart pattern is recorded and sent to the first light bulb in the grid, pushing all existing records forward. The installation displays a recording of the most recent participant at any given time.3 Lozano Hemmer got inspiration for this work when his wife was pregnant with twins, he was listening to his unborn children’s heartbeat at the same time from two ultrasound machines. This personal experience got him thinking as to how to make the electrical signal of heart visible. He also gained inspiration from a Mexican movie called Macario(1960) that directed by Robert Gavaldon. In this movie, the main character is getting illusion caused by hunger, which makes him feel that everyone is represented by the lights candle in the cave.4 Similarly, Lozano tried his hand to realize this unique experience in reality through the Pulse Room where he was able to capture each participant's heartbeat by transferring it to a fragile light bulb. Therefore, Lozano promotes large scale variants through each bulb which represented the particular participant’s personal life. In this way, it could be said that the pulse was symbolic of the 'rhythm' of life.5 However, each person's initial pulse will eventually disappeared and was replaced by the heartbeat of the new participant. This installation is more meaningful than just see it, because it represents the lifecycle through its cyclical mode of representation. The pattern of this installation and its functioning resonates with the fragility of a real heart which does not have eternal life and stops beating after a point. Thus, this installation envisages the transient nature of life and provides an interactive platform for the participants to gain in depth realization about the concept of existence and the true meaning of life.6 In this work Lozano try to use different rhythm of light and several digital media to enable participants to create their own connections with the installation and interpret the work. The end result was that participants did not just interact with the installations, but also change and this allowed people to redefine their relationship with technology. Another interesting observation about this installation was that the very aspect of the pulse is essentially limited in nature as we can always feel and hear it but never see it. Thus, we cannot control our heartbeat like we control our mind. However, Lozano Hemmer’s work made it possible to see pulse and to exercise control over it, even though it was limited in nature. Participants could see something that they had never seen before and that to something they had never thought they could see with their eyes. Therefore, participants were able to see themselves as they would not normally see, and this helped them to gain a better understanding of their own selves.7

3."Pulse Room." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 27, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/pulse_room.php.

4."Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Aesthetica Magazine. Accessed November 29, 2018. http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/rafael-lozano-hemmer/.

5.Schmidt, Ulrik, and Merete Carlson. "Pulse on Pulse: Modulation and Signification in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room." Nordic Journal of Migration Research. January 01, 1970. Accessed November 29, 2018. https://forskning.ruc.dk/en/publications/puls-på-puls-modulation-og-betydningsdannelse-i-rafael-lozano-hem.

6. Hollenberg, Sarah, Gathie Falk, Robin Laurence, Merray Gerges, Jaclyn Bruneau, and Leah Sandals. "Different Heartbeats: Pulse Room by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Canadian Art. Accessed November 29, 2018. https://canadianart.ca/features/pulse-room/.

7."Participation and Performance: Human-Technology Relations ..." Accessed December 9, 2018. https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/1867845/Participation-and-Performance_Human-Technology-Relations-in-the-Art-of-Rafael-Lazano-Hemmer.pdf.

In “Pulse-based” work, Lozano albeit temporarily was able to successfully change the relationship between humans and space; In series of “Relational Architecture” Lozano altered the relationship between human and Architecture. Body movies(2001) is the sixth piece in the “Relational Architecture” series by Lozano Hemmer. Body Movies changed the conceptualization of public space through an interactive projection placed at 400 to 1,800 square meters. There were thousands of photographs of portraits taken on the streets of the host city previously, and these portraits were displayed using the robot-controlled projectors. However, these images showed the projected shadow of passers-by inside, depending on the distance between passers-by and the powerful source of light, their shadow outline could be measured between two to twenty-five meters. A video surveillance tracking system triggers new portraits when all existing portraits are revealed, thus, inviting the public to take up new representative narration.  Lozano Hemmer got this inspire from Samuel van Hoogstraten's engraving "The Shadow Dance" (Rotterdam, 1675).8  In the series of “Relational Architecture” Lozano uses several large-scale installations include sensors, networks, robots and audiovisual technologies to change the relationship between participants and architecture whilst changing the face of the city. Lozano asserts that most of the buildings being constructed today are no longer representative of local people because of the increase in interconnectedness and the globalization. There are two normal trends in today's architectural patterns: default buildings and vampire architecture. The first trend represents the general framework of corporate culture and capital optimization, and second refers to symbolic buildings that do not allow natural death and artificially maintain life by means of restoration, citation and virtual simulation as well. Lozano through his work sought to change the appearance of these buildings temporarily so that these buildings could pretend to be outside their own appearance to create a performance interface. In addition, Body Movies is strengthened in the form of participation because it shows two modes of participation: One is to participate as a single individual because each person's shadow is belong his own; It can also be seen as collective participation, as some people choose to interact with buildings or shadows which enables people in the square to interact with the piece at the same time. In the previous works, only one participant was allowed to interact with the installations at a time, but in body movie, he implemented multi-person interaction so that participants could use it at the same time. Therefore, what comes to the forefront is the realization that this complex interface creates a supple balance between both individual participation and collective interaction, and between active form of participation and reflective thinking as well. The motive of this work is to foster interaction with a group of strangers in a public space because, through the commensurate form of interaction, these strangers can influence the visual atmosphere of that space in a definite manner. Thus, Body Movies uses the openness of the relational space as a starting point for developing dynamic and participatory spaces.9

8."Body Movies." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/body_movies.php.

9. "07 TransUrbanism P01 - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/venice/pdFs/articles_panorama/07_TransUrbanism.pdf.

To conclude, the aim of this essay was to illuminate the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Canadian-Mexican artist who is interested in working with large scale installations. “Pulse-based” work and “Relational Architecture" are two representative series of works by Lozano Hemmer, and “Pulse Room” and “Body Movies” are two famous pieces from these two series. While the Pulse Room sought to establish a connective form of experience which could be uniquely felt by the participant, the Body Movies sought to establish an interactive form of experience with the motive to bring about positive change through collaborative efforts much like their participation in the installation. Thus, Lozano is an artist who consciously produces work which speaks volumes about his quest to strike a chord with the public, by crafting work which externalizes what exists in the internal sphere. His drive to propound installations that enhance participation and focus on the audience as much as on the installation itself talks about the value attached the public and the aspect of humanity inherent in the work of this artist.

Bibliography 

"Artist Biography." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/bio.php.

Ponzini, Monica. “Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Relational Architecture • Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture.” Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture. February 09, 2016. Accessed December 05, 2018. http://digicult.it/design/rafael-lozano-hemmer-relational-architecture/.

"Pulse Room." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 27, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/pulse_room.php.

"Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Aesthetica Magazine. Accessed November 29, 2018. http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/rafael-lozano-hemmer/.

Schmidt, Ulrik, and Merete Carlson. "Pulse on Pulse: Modulation and Signification in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room." Nordic Journal of Migration Research. January 01, 1970. Accessed November 29, 2018. https://forskning.ruc.dk/en/publications/puls-på-puls-modulation-og-betydningsdannelse-i-rafael-lozano-hem.

Hollenberg, Sarah, Gathie Falk, Robin Laurence, Merray Gerges, Jaclyn Bruneau, and Leah Sandals. "Different Heartbeats: Pulse Room by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Canadian Art. Accessed November 29, 2018. https://canadianart.ca/features/pulse-room/.

"Participation and Performance: Human-Technology Relations ..." Accessed December 9, 2018. https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/1867845/Participation-and-Performance_Human-Technology-Relations-in-the-Art-of-Rafael-Lazano-Hemmer.pdf.

"Body Movies." Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/body_movies.php.

"07 TransUrbanism P01 - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Accessed November 28, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/venice/pdFs/articles_panorama/07_TransUrbanism.pdf.

Ekman, Ulrik. "Of the Untouchability of Embodiment I: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Relational Architectures." Migration, Mobility, & Displacement. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ctheory/article/view/14943/5838.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Project "Levels of Nothingness". Accessed December 10, 2018. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/venice/pdFs/articles_panorama.

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