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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
) is a Mexican-Canadian
electronic art Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media. More broadly, it refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electr ...
ist living and working in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He creates platforms for public participation by using robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his interactive works are “anti-monuments for people to self-represent.” He emigrated to Canada in 1985 to study at the
University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1903 as Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria Col ...
in British Columbia and then received his
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...
in
Physical Chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mech ...
from
Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...
in
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
. The son of Mexico City nightclub owners, Lozano-Hemmer was drawn to science but could not resist joining the creative activities of his friends. Initially he worked in a molecular recognition lab in Montreal and published his research in Chemistry journals. Though he did not pursue the sciences as a direct career, it has influenced his work in many ways, providing conceptual inspiration and practical approaches to create his work.


Biography

Lozano-Hemmer is best known for creating and presenting theatrical interactive installations in public spaces around the world. Using robotics, real-time computer graphics, film projections, positional sound, internet links, cell phone interfaces, video and ultrasonic sensors, LED screens and other devices, his installations seek to interrupt the increasingly homogenized urban condition by providing critical platforms for participation. Lozano-Hemmer's smaller-scaled sculptural and video installations explore themes of perception, deception and
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
. As an outgrowth of these various large scale and performance-based projects Lozano-Hemmer documents the works in photography editions that are also exhibited. He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
with an exhibition at Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has also shown at Biennials in Cuenca, Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne NGV, Moscow, New Orleans, New York ICP, Seoul, Seville, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Wuzhen. His public art has been commissioned for th
Millennium Celebrations in Mexico City
(1999), the Expansion of the European Union in Dublin (2004), the Student Massacre Memorial in Tlatelolco (2008), the Vancouver Olympics (2010), the pre-opening exhibition of the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi (2015), and the activation of the Raurica Roman Theatre in Basel (2018). Collections holding his work include
MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
and Guggenheim in New York,
TATE Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...
in London, MAC and MBAM in Montreal, Jumex, and MUAC in Mexico City, DAROS in Zurich, MONA in Hobart, 21C Museum in Kanazawa, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, CIFO in Miami, MAG in Manchester, SFMOMA in San Francisco, ZKM in Karlsruhe, SAM in Singapore and many others. He has received two
BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
British Academy Awards for Interactive Art in London, a Golden Nica at the
Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria ...
in Austria, "Artist of the year" Rave Award from
Wired Magazine ''Wired'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. It is published in both print and Online magazine, online editions by Condé Nast. The magazine has been in public ...
, a Rockefeller fellowship, the Trophée des Lumières in Lyon, an International Bauhaus Award in Dessau, the title of Compagnon des Arts et des Lettres du Québec in Quebec, and the Governor General's Award in Canada. He has lectured at
Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...
, the Bartlett School,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
,
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
,
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...
,
USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...
, MIT MediaLab,
Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: * The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...
, LA MOCA, Netherlands Architecture Institute,
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, UPenn, SCAD,
Danish Architecture Centre Danish Architecture Center ( Danish: Dansk Arkitektur Center), (DAC), is Denmark’s national center for the development and dissemination of knowledge about architecture, building and urban development. DAC’s objective and legitimacy consist i ...
, CCA in Montreal, ICA in London, and the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
. In the past few years, Lozano-Hemmer was the subject of eighteen solo exhibitions worldwide, including a major show at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, the inaugural show at the AmorePacific Museum in Seoul, and a mid-career retrospective co-produced by the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal and SFMOMA. In 2019, his immersive performance “Atmospheric Memory” premiered at the Manchester International Festival, and his interactive installation “Border Tuner” connected people across the US-Mexico border using bridges of light controlled by the voices of participants in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas. Major recent solo exhibitions include “Listening Forest,” which featured his largest collection to date of outdoor works, installed over 120 acres of land at
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission. Overview ...
in Bentonville, Arkansas, “Common Measures,” his first exhibition at PACE Gallery, New York, and “Translation Island,” a 2-km parcours which included ten public artworks, in Lulu Island, Abu Dhabi. Lozano-Hemmer is represented by bitforms gallery (New York), Galería Max Estrella (Madrid), Wilde Gallery (Geneva, Basel, and Zürich), and
PACE Gallery The Pace Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong Kong, ...
(Worldwide). His work has been shown at fairs such as
Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, an ...
(Basel, Miami, and Hong Kong),
Frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...
(London and LA),
Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by thAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibition ...
(New York), ARCO (Madrid),
Zona Maco Zona Maco (stylized as ZⓈONAMACO) is an annual international Arts festival, art fair in Mexico City. Founded in 2003 by Zélika García, it is held in February at Centro Citibanamex. “Maco” is an abbreviation of “México Arte Contemporá ...
(Mexico),
Paris Photo Paris Photo is an annual international art fair dedicated to photography. It was founded in 1997, and is held in November at the Grand Palais exhibition hall and museum complex, located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement in Pari ...
, and
Art Cologne Art Cologne is an art exhibition, art fair held annually in Cologne, Germany and was established in 1967 as ''Kölner Kunstmarkt''. It is regarded as the world's oldest art fair of its kind. The fair runs for six days and brings together galleries ...
. He has shown three times at Art Basel Unlimited.


Publications

Ten monographs have been published featuring essays by writers such as Cuauhtémoc Medina, Scott McQuire, John Hanhardt, Rodrigo Alonso, Beryl Graham, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill,
Manuel De Landa Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) is a Mexican- American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania Scho ...
, Victor Stoichita, Barbara London,
Geert Lovink Geert Lovink (born 1959, Amsterdam) is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and ope ...
,
Brian Massumi Brian Massumi (; born 1956) is a Canadian philosopher and social theorist. Massumi's research spans the fields of art, architecture, cultural studies, political theory and philosophy. His work explores the intersection between power, perception, ...
. Lozano-Hemmer’s own writing has appeared, for example, in Kunstforum (Germany), Leonardo (USA), Performance Research (UK), and Archis (Netherlands).


Rafael Lozano- Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Edited by Rudolf Frieling and François LeTourneux. "This mid-career monograph offers a nuanced perspective on contemporary artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s oeuvre. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installations engage the audience in unique and seductive ways—measuring their heart rate, surveilling their faces, even circulating their breath. Often characterized by particular interactions between the work and the viewer, Lozano-Hemmer’s art explores themes such as forced cohabitations, power imbalances, and contemporary techniques of surveillance and control. This mid-career retrospective book focuses on works produced over the past two decades. It includes essays that explore the poetic and political dimensions of the artist’s work, along with in-depth examinations of four major pieces—Zoom Pavilion, Vicious Circular Breathing, Voz Alta, and Pulse Room. It also features full-color illustrations of 16 recent works, including a newly created immersive sound environment, Sphere Packing: Bach. An essential guide to a deeper understanding of the themes that connect these technically sophisticated and emotionally resonant works, this book draws on the idea of an “unstable presence” to communicate the humanity and the anxiety that lie at the center of Lozano-Hemmer’s art."


Museums & Permanent Collections

Over two-dozen permanent architectural pieces for public and private buildings have been installed around the world. These includ
Planet Word Museum of Language
in Washington D.C., Maison Manuvie in Montréal, ATT in Dallas, Museum of Old, and New Art in Hobart, Science Museum in London, AmorePacific Museum in Seoul, PHI Centre and MAC in Montréal, and Fidelity Headquarters in Boston, London, and Dalian.


Pulse Room (2006)

Is an interactive installation featuring over 300 hundred clear incandescent light bulbs, 300 W each, hung by cables three metres from the floor. The bulbs are uniformly distributed over the exhibition room, filling it completely. An interface placed on one side of the room has a sensor that detects the heart rate of participants. When someone holds the interface, a computer detects his or her pulse and immediately sets off the closest bulb to flash at the exact rhythm of his or her heart. The moment the interface is released, all the lights turn off briefly, and the flashing sequence advances by one position down the queue to the next bulb in the grid. Each time someone touches the interface, a heart pattern is recorded and sent to the first bulb in the grid, pushing ahead all the existing recordings. At any given time, the installation will show the recordings from the most recent participants.


Vicious Circular Breathing (2015)

Is a hermetically sealed apparatus that invites the public to breathe the air previously breathed by participants before them. It consists of a glass room with double sliding doors, two emergency exits, carbon dioxide and oxygen sensors, a set of motorized bellows, an electromagnetic valve system, and 61 brown paper bags hanging from respiration tubes. In the piece, visitors’ breath is kept circulating and made tangible by automatically inflating and deflating the brown paper bags around 10,000 times a day, the typical respiratory frequency for an adult at rest. There are 61 bags because that constitutes 5 octaves, a typical range of musical organs that inspire the design. The piece includes warnings for asphyxiation, contagion, and panic, producing a faint mechanical sound, a quiet whir from the air flow, and a louder crackle from the crumpling bags. To participate, an audience member presses a button on the outside of the glass prism. They can then enter a vestibule and wait for it to be decompressed. Once they enter the main chamber, they sit down and breathe the recycled air.


A Crack in the Hourglass (2020)

In this participatory artwork, a modified robotic plotter deposits grains of hourglass sand onto a black surface to recreate the images of those lost due to COVID-19. After each portrait is completed, the surface tilts and the same sand is recycled into the next portrait, echoing the collective and ongoing nature of the pandemic. Those seeking a way to mourn loved ones lost during the pandemic are invited to participate by submitting a photograph of the deceased accompanied by a personalized dedication. The resulting memorials are available, via livestream and in archive form on the project’s website. The project was originally commissioned by MUAC Museum in Mexico City and was shown at the Brooklyn Museum for six months. Art21 made an episode about this artwork, "Episode 280: In the midst of loss and isolation, an artist’s anti-monument, “A Crack in the Hourglass” (2021), brings communities together to mourn, remember, and feel connected again."


Public Art Commissions

Large-scale interactive installations have been commissioned for events such as the Millennium Celebrations in Mexico City (1999), the Cultural Capital of Europe in Rotterdam (2001), the UN World Summit of Cities in Lyon (2003), the opening of the YCAM Center in Japan (2003), the Expansion of the European Union in Dublin (2004), the memorial for the Tlatelolco Student Massacre in Mexico City (2008), the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (2010), the pre-opening exhibition of the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi (2015), the activation of the Augusta Raurica Roman Theatre in Basel (2018), and the sound to light intervention across the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso (2019).


Border Tuner / Sintonizador Fronterizo (2019)

Border Tuner was a large-scale, participatory art installation designed to interconnect the cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Powerful searchlights make “bridges of light” that open live sound channels for communication across the US-Mexico border. Each of the interactive Border Tuner stations featured a microphone, a speaker and a large wheel or dial. As a participant turned the dial, three nearby searchlights created an “arm” of light that followed the movement of the dial, automatically scanning the horizon. When two such “arms of light” met in the sky and intersected, a bidirectional channel of sound was opened between the people at the two remote stations. As they spoke and heard each other, the brightness of the “light bridge” modulated in sync, creating a glimmer similar to a Morse code scintillation. Every interactive station could tune into any other, so for example, a participant in Mexico could connect to the three US-based stations or to the other two in Mexico. The project brought together tens of thousands of people, reuniting families on both sides of the border, creating new connections, performing poetry recitals and serenades, observing mournful vigils, and staging the vibrancy of the diverse culture and activism in the region. Art:21 presented "this special extended segment as a complement to the “Borderlands” episode from the tenth season of the ''Art in the Twenty-First Century'' series. Edited to focus on a singular artist narrative, this film contains original material not included in the television broadcast."


Speaking Willow (2020)

A metal tree sculpture, covered in living vine and ivy, features hundreds of hanging loudspeakers which detect the presence of a visitor underneath and, in response, play quiet voice recordings in one of 400 different languages. Each speaker contains recordings in a different language, obtained from the Wikitongues language preservation project. The speakers also light up on playback to create a glimmering effect similar to fireflies. If no visitor is around, the tree quietly plays back bird songs from hundreds of species. Curated by the
Public Art Fund Public Art Fund is an independent, non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 by Doris C. Freedman. The organization presents contemporary art in New York City's public spaces through a series of highly visible artists' projects, new commissions ...
for the courtyard of the new Planet Word Museum of Language in Washington D.C., the piece was fabricated by UAP in New York.


Performances


Levels of Nothingness (2009)

Collaboration with
Brian Massumi Brian Massumi (; born 1956) is a Canadian philosopher and social theorist. Massumi's research spans the fields of art, architecture, cultural studies, political theory and philosophy. His work explores the intersection between power, perception, ...
and
Isabella Rossellini Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (; born 18 June 1952) is an Italian actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme ...
Levels of Nothingness is an installation-performance commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum, inspired by Kandinsky’s opera, “The Yellow Sound” (1912). In “Levels of Nothingness”, the human voice is analyzed by computers, automatically controlling a full rig of Rock-and-Roll concert lighting and creating an interactive colour show. For the New York performances, Isabella Rossellini read a libretto co-written by Brian Massumi, which included seminal philosophical texts on skepticism, color and perception, including writings by Kandinsky, Deleuze, Sanches, Simon Baron-Cohen and Alexander Luria. Following the performances, audience members could test the colour-generating microphone. Vide
here


Sync, a performance with Eli Keszler (2022)

Sync is an audiovisual collaboration between artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and percussionist, composer, and artist Eli Keszler. Taking place amid Lozano-Hemmer’s first solo exhibition at
PACE Gallery The Pace Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong Kong, ...
New York, this one-off performance centers on the immersive, biometric artwork Pulse Topology. Consisting of 3,000 suspended lightbulbs that glimmer in tune with activity detected by pulse sensors, the installation, which typically records participants’ heartbeats, is activated by Keszler’s distinctive drumming in Sync. Using a Sensory Percussion system by Sunhouse, Keszler triggered and controlled a series of mesmeric lighting patterns—what he terms a “morphing geography of light”—in Pulse Topology over the course of his performance.


Storm Riders Hörspiel, Denmark (1992)

Hörspiel (radio play) by English composer and Poet
Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was ...
, written and recorded at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada in 1991. Lozano- Hemmer played the part of Stravinsky in performances in Banff and at the Alberta College of Art.


Art Parcours and ''Inversive'' Exhibitions


Listening Forest (2022)

An art walk designed to transform
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission. Overview ...
’s North Forest at night, featuring eight large-scale interactive artworks to create an interactive pathway. Using technology that responded to visitors’ voices, heartbeats, and body heat, “Listening Forest” highlighted the unique physical characteristics of participants while simultaneously establishing connections between them and the landscape itself.


Atmospheric Memory, Sydney (2023)

Computer pioneer
Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...
suggested that the air surrounding us is a “vast library” containing every sound, motion and word spoken. Two hundred years later, Atmospheric Memory explores this idea at a moment when perfect recollection is one of the defining conditions of our digital life, and the air that we breathe has become a battleground for the future of our planet. Atmospheric Memory uses new interactive artworks to transform vibrations in the atmosphere into something visitors can see, hear and even touch. Presented at the Powerhouse Ultimo Museum, the exhibition’s works include a voice-controlled fountain where spoken words momentarily hang in the air as water vapour; a room with over 3000 different channels of natural and unnatural sounds; a voice-controlled light beacon, and the world’s first 3D printed speech bubble. On view are also original artifacts from the XIX Century including prototypes of the Analytical Engine, Edison’s first
phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...
, and a first edition of Babbage’s treatise. Atmospheric Memory headlined the Sydney Science Festival, and was originally commissioned by
Factory International Factory International runs Manchester International Festival and operates Aviva Studios, a cultural space in Manchester, England. History Factory International builds on the legacy of Manchester International Festival (MIF), which focusses o ...
for the Manchester International Festival. Curated by José Luis de Vicente.


Translation Island (2023)

Source: Translation Island consists of ten audiovisual artworks that transformed Lulu Island, a deserted island right across the water from downtown Abu Dhabi. Visitors were welcome to interact with the artworks by walking a 2-km path inside the island, alongside sand dunes, desert flora, beaches, and fresh water lakes. The installations use technologies such as AI, computer vision, environmental sensors, and 3D mapping to create poetic shared experiences in a desert landscape. “Collider,” for instance, detects invisible cosmic radiation arriving on Earth from stars and black holes, translating the radiation and making it visible as gentle ripples along a colossal curtain of light that can be seen from a 10 Km radius. Other works such as “Dune Ringers”, and “Pulse Island” make tangible our own biometric signatures. Several installations are literally live translations of language. “Translation Stream” is a fluid stream of letters, projected onto the sandy trail, which organize themselves around visitors, revealing the poetry of contemporary Emirati poets in both English and Arabic. Meanwhile, “Shadow Tuner” allows visitors to use their shadow to tune-in up to 12,000 live streams of radio from around the world, and “Translation Lake” uses AI voice avatars to endlessly translate James Joyce’s recondite masterpiece “Finnegan’s Wake” into 24 languages, celebrating the impossibility and absurdity of fluid machine translation of complex human literature.


Relational Architecture

In 1994, Lozano-Hemmer coined the term "relational architecture" as the technological actualization of buildings and the urban environment with alien memory. He aimed to transform the dominant narratives of a specific building or urban setting by superimposing audiovisual elements to affect it, effect it and re-contextualize it.Fernandez, M. "Illumination Embodiment: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Relational Architectures." Architectural Design (July/August 2007) pp. 78-87 From 1997 to 2006, he built ten works of relational architecture beginning with ''Displaced Emperors'' and ending with ''Under Scan''. Lozano-Hemmer says, "I want buildings to pretend to be something other than themselves, to engage in a kind of dissimulation"Adriaansens, Alex, and Joke Brouwer. "Alien Relationships from Public Space: A Winding Dialog with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer." Transurbanism. 2002. Print.


Technology

Lozano-Hemmer differs from many artists in his comprehensive use of technology; most of his productions contain more than one element of technology to create a lasting effect. Lozano-Hemmer recognizes that Western culture is a technology-based culture, emphasizing "even if you are not using a computer you are affected by this environment. Working with technology is inevitable." "Our politics, our culture, our economy, everything is running through globalized networks of communication..." Technologies that Lozano-Hemmer has used in his works include robotics, custom software, projections, internet links, cell phones, sensors, LEDs, cameras, and tracking systems.


Notable Exhibitions

* ''A Draft of Shadows''
Bildmuseet Bildmuseet () is a contemporary art museum in Umeå, northern Sweden. History The museum was founded in 1981 by Umeå University and it exhibits Swedish and international contemporary art, visual culture, design, and architecture, sometimes alo ...
, Umeå University, Sweden. November 2, 2014 - April 26, 2015 * Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Translation Island (curated by: Reem Fadda and Alia Zaal Sultan Lootah), Department of Culture and Tourism of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, November 20 - December 31. * Lumiere 2023 (curated by: Helen Marriage), Lumiere Festival Durham, Durham, United Kingdom, November 16 - November 19. * Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Vicious Circular Breathing (curated by: Kathleen Forde), Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey, September 14 - February 16, 2014.


Awards

*
Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually, each with a prize amount of $25,000. Created in 2000 by then Governor General ...
, Ottawa, Canada 2015. * Interactive Art Honorable Mention, Ars Electronica 2013, Linz, Austria 2013. * Joyce Award, The Joyce Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, United States 2012. *
BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
British Academy Award for Interactive Art 2005, London, United Kingdom 2005. * Artist/Performer of the year, Wired Magazine Rave Awards, San Francisco, California, United States 2003. * Rockefeller-Ford Fellowship, New York City, New York, United States 2003. * Trophée des Lumiéres, Lyon, France 2003. * World Technology Network Award for the Arts, San Francisco, California, United States 2003. *
BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
British Academy Award for Interactive Art 2002, London, United Kingdom 2002. * Gold Award, Interactive Media Design Review 2002, I.D. Magazine, United States 2002. * Interactive Art Distinction, Ars Electronica 2002, Linz, Austria 2002. * International Bauhaus Award 2002, 1st Prize, Dessau, Germany 2002. * Distinction,
SFMOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...
Webby Awards The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...
2000, San Francisco, California, United States 2000. * Excellence Award, Media Arts Festival 2000, CG Arts, Tokyo, Japan 2000. * Finalist, Medienkunstpreis 2000, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany 2000. * Interactive Art Golden Nica, Ars Electronica 2000, Linz, Austria 2000. * Interactive Art Honorable Mention, Ars Electronica 1998, Linz, Austria 1998. * Best Installation, Interactive Digital Media Awards 1996, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 1996. * 2nd Prize, Cyberstar, Köln, Germany, June 1995. * Interactive Art Honorable Mention, Ars Electronica 1995, Linz, Austria 1995.


Further reading

*Maciej Ożóg, "Surveilling the Surveillance Society: The Case of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Installations" in Outi Remes and Pam Skelton (eds.), ''Conspiracy Dwellings: Surveillance in Contemporary Art''. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. Info at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110609232602/http://www.c-s-p.org/flyers/Conspiracy-Dwellings--Surveillance-in-Contemporary-Art1-4438-1905-0.htm


References


External links


Official websiteArt 21 interview

Pulse Room

Vicious Circular Breathing

Levels of Nothingness
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lozano-Hemmer, Rafael 1967 births Living people Concordia University alumni Mexican contemporary artists Canadian contemporary artists Mexican emigrants to Canada Canadian people of Mexican descent New media artists Artists from Madrid Artists from Mexico City Artists from Montreal Canadian installation artists Canadian physical chemists Mexican physical chemists Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts