photo: FUKUNAGA Kazuo
Pulse Room
| Artist | Rafael LOZANO-HEMMER |
|---|---|
| Year | 2006 |
| Material/ Technique | incandescent light bulb, voltage controller, heart rate sensor, computer and metal sculpture |
| Size/ Duration | dimensions variable |
| Copyright Notice | © Rafael LOZANO-HEMMER |
| Year of acquisition/ donation | 2009 |
| Description | Born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1967. Lives and works in Montreal, Canada and Madrid, Spain. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer focuses on temporary relations to place, time and people by using electronic technology and the interface, on which body movements work directly. He develops a large-scale interactive installation, which actually relates to a building or place. His project, in which technology and history coexist and a concept of movement is strongly reflected, exposes the importance of complicity underlying in urban space, and explores to formulate new relations. Around 300 incandescent lightbulbs are arranged in a regular pattern overhead, hanging over the exhibition space. They light the space, each of the large 300 watt bulbs blinking on and off to its own rhythm. In "Pulse Room", heartbeats are transformed into the rhythms of the blinking of lightbulbs. When a viewer holds onto handgrips on a stand set up inside the space, their heartbeat is detected by sensors and transformed into the blinking rhythm of the lightbulb in front of them. When they release their hands the rhythm is transferred to the bulbs overhead. Whenever a viewer’s heartbeat rhythm is recorded, the recording moves from one lightbulb to the next in succession. Proof of life in the form of the beating of the heart is expressed as the blinking of light through the direct action of touching. As suggested by Lozano-Hemmer’s likening of this work to a “memento mori,” the lights suspended in midair are indicative of an aggregate of vital forces while also calling to mind the impermanence of existence. The high-pitched sound of the lights blinking on and off that is audible if one strains one’s ears ripples through the space, the collection of different rhythms creating music that is complex, random, and continually changing. |
NOTES
This Collection Data page contains the works and materials in the collection of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as of April 1, 2018.
Artists are listed alphabetically by artist’s surname.
Works and materials by the same artists are listed according to the date of the work in principle.
Works whose dates are unidentified are listed at the end of each item. Some works are not listed according to the date of work due to their relations.
The data of works and materials are listed in order of title, production year, material/technique/form, dimensions, donor’s name, copyright holder and credit for photograph.
Dimensions are given by height (H) x width (W) in centimeters for plane work, and height (H) x width (W) x depth (D) in cm for 3-D work. Diameter (Ø) is used for circular work.
For the name of country or city, the name currently used in English is listed in principle.