Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. He didn't start off his life doing art, he actually received a BSc in Physical Chemistry at the university of Concordia Montreal, Canada before starting out his career as an artist. In the begging of his career, he worked in a molecular recognition lab in Montreal because he was so drawn science. Although he loved and was fascinated by science he couldn't help but join in on the creative activities that his friends were getting involved in. Therefore he did not pursue his career in the sciences but his knowledge and experience influenced his art work in many ways. They provided conceptual inspiration and helped him take practical approaches to create his work.
- He is known as an electronic artist who develops interactive installations that are at the intersection of architecture and performance. It uses both large and small scales, indoor and outdoor setting and also some audiovisual technologies.
- He is best known for creating these interactive installation across Europe, Asia and America using robotics, real-time computer graphics, film projections, positional sound, internet links, cell phone interfaces, video and ultrasonic sensors, LED screen and other devices.
- His smaller scale installations explore themes of perception, deception and surveillance.
Exploring the theme of Maps and Networks, I looked into his "Third Person" and "Subtitled Public" installations because I found them to be very intriguing. The idea of using a collection of verbs to recreate the shadow of the person interacting with the installation fascinated me because the person doesn't get to choose which words they are associated with. It uses a computerised tracking system and reveals the viewers shadow using verbs that are in third person. They can choose to display the words in English, Spanish, French or a combination of all three. It connects well with the theme because the words are sort of like a network coming together to create this silhouette of who ever is standing in front of the tracker at the time.
The "Subtitled Public" installation involves an empty room where viewers are then tracked by a computerised surveillance system. As soon as the person walks into the room, a random verb from the dictionary is chosen and then projected onto them. This projection stays on them for the duration of the time they're in the room unless they touch another person which will then cause an exchange of their subtitles. This installation also highlights the fact that with surveillance you can never really escape because you're constantly being tracked; you cannot escape it.
"Subtitled Public" - Mexico City (2005) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer from bitforms gallery on Vimeo.
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