record – LABS

Thesis Info

Abstract: 200-500 words: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican-Canadian 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. This thesis studies the aforementioned installations as a body of work that share a basic interface with different outcomes in a variety of forms, contents and phenomenological results. The paper shows how the pulse-based installations and their applications, while innovative in their form and technological infrastructure, are intimately related with a very long history of scientific and artistic experimentation. Four components of the pulse works are unfolded in this study: Light, Body, Space and Time. The different conceptualizations of these elements are analyzed and entwined therefore mapping new narratives and interpretations of Lozano-Hemmer’s artistic production. This study uses a media archaeological approach that seeks to reveal the works as rhizomatic ecosystems that have a variety of connotations that facilitate multiple typological interactions.