An exhibition in Washington will leave its perfect home here tomorrow.
Pulse by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has been up at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden since last fall, during which time it has collected thousands of heartbeats, pulses, and fingerprints from visitors who have stopped to wonder and add their own identities to produce the display.
Some of the latest technologies in yet another interactive art show (isn't that what most contemporary shows are these days?) are combined with voluntary contributions with results to be seen pronto.
Water, lights, human movement, sensors, touch, and vital signs mix in huge galleries to show a little bit of just who you are in the grand population, physiologically speaking. (Not that you can pick out your own pieces in the show since they all look and sound alike!)
Three Pulse installations fill the museum's second floor, the first, Pulse Index records fingerprints and heart rates when visitors insert their fingers in a sensor.
That information enters a large grid cell of 10,000 others while simultaneously discarding the oldest record, somewhat like the grand scheme of life. ("Out with the old and in with the new! Fare thee well!")
The second installation, Pulse Tank (2008) finds visitors interacting with sensors on water tanks. Computers detect pulses, sending ripples on the water which reflect shadows to fall over walls in a combination of unidentified human offerings and links.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967), Pulse Room, 2006, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Hundreds of light bulbs electrified by visitors touching a sensor, hang from the ceiling in the third installation, Pulse Room (2006). Heartbeats and the concomitant sounds are heard throughout the space. As more people come through the gallery, new beats become the latest part of the bulb sensation and move on down the row or line, making a pattern of movement until they, too, exit the story at the last bulb or end. (Question: How long does this journey take? It would seem to depend on the number of people in the gallery. A lot would mean a fast exit.)
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in 1967 in Mexico City and graduated from Concordia University in Montreal with a B.S. in physical chemistry. In 2003 he founded the Antimodular Research Laboratory in Montreal where engineers, architects, programmers and artists from around the world study, create and make. Now he and his team are at work on more than 20 permanent installations, commissioned by global "new age" electric collectors.
In 2007 Lozano-Hemmer's art took him to Venice and the Biennale where he was the first artist to represent Mexico.
Large interactive Lozano-Hemmer displays may be found in New York, Vancouver, Berlin, and museums around the world.
From his website:
His main interest is in creating platforms for public participation, by perverting technologies such as robotics, computerized surveillance or telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival and animatronics, his light and shadow works are "antimonuments for alien agency".
Whether the FBI, the CIA, the FSB, or the North Koreans would okay their employees engaging in Pulse is debatable, but, on the other hand, maybe they are the ones behind it all. Could be a joint venture.
What: Pulse by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
When: Now through tomorrow, April 28, 2019, from 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Where: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall at Independence Avenue and Seventh Street, S.W.
How much: No charge
Metro stations: Smithsonian or L'Enfant Plaza (Maryland Avenue exit)
For more information: 202-633-1000
patricialesli@gmail.com
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