Connecting realities: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s pulse-based works

Abstract

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican digital artist recognized for creating large-scale theatrical interactive installations for museum and public spaces, as well as small-scale works with custom-made interfaces and digital technologies. Since 2006 this artist has created eight works that require the physiological input (pulse and heartbeats) of the audience in order to be completed. Light in the pulse-based works of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is the main vehicle that serves to visualize heartbeats outside the realm of the body, facilitating its reterritorialization and conceptualization as a malleable material that can cross the boundaries of the skin, expanding it to other three-dimensional extents in which new spatiotemporal relationships and interactions between participants and the surroundings are produced. This paper explores how these rhizomatic digital installations create a community conscience and engagement between different people in various spaces dedicated to art, while challenging our conception of reality.

Keywords

• Interactive art
• Installation
• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
• Space
• Time
• Pulse