Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

The installation art exhibition was quite untraditional, a new form of cultural art. It shows what a big place technology takes in our civilization. Every piece of art had its own space, so nothing was covered by another piece. Rafael Lozano -Hemmer took normal objects and put them out of their normal environment, so the context changed and something new was created. For example the pulse room. In the pulse room are 100 light bulbs and cylindrical sensor handles. You have to keep holding the sensor for 15 seconds to read your pulse then your heart pulse will be transferred in to the light bulbs and the whole room will be lighted by your heartbeat.

I felt really engaged to this piece of art because it connects technology and my own body. To see how such a strong natural bodily function like a heartbeat is translated in to a simple electrical process. A whole room full of flashing lights recreating my heartbeat. Your heartbeat is something really personal hidden inside you which is usually only shared in intimate moments but in this piece you display it to who ever is in the room. It becomes public.

Another of Rafael Lozano-Hemmers pieces is called microphones. In a circle are standing 10 microphones when you speak in to a microphone your voice gets recorded and different voice answers, this other voice belongs to a previous participant. I could not really connect with this piece. The voice comes out of the microphones what is like listening to a voice without a body, which makes the microphone the body.

You can clearly see how influenced Rafael Lozano – Hemmer is by science. In one way he shows how close we are to technology and that we can‘t survive without it. The fact that he uses technology as art and we don't question if it is art or science shows how flowing the borders are between those two. In all of this work you are involved in the installation: without you there is nothing. You complete it by taking part in it.