Remote Pulse

Many of the art installations and works by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer are totally immersive, on a large scale, and powered by visitors. Many of his works require participation to function. It is very timely to create artwork made with biometrics, subverting this technology instead of a tool for measurement, but to increase connection and community. In this interactive installation, two people in different locations can feel the other's heartbeat without any other identifying indication. This experience has been described as deeply moving on a profound level. A complex idea is being communicated with a just a simple heartbeat. Remote Pulse was originally presented as part of Lozano-Hemmer’s Border Tuner installation across the US-Mexico border, with one station in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and the other in El Paso, Texas.

At the SNF Nostos the stations are located at two different points around the SNFCC Canal Shores: at the Agora and at the Visitors Center.

Artist’s Bio
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. In 1989 he received a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. He is a media artist working at the intersection of architecture and performance art. He creates platforms for public participation using technologies such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, media walls, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his light and shadow works are "antimonuments for alien agency". He was the first artist to officially represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale in 2007. He has shown at Art Biennials and Triennials internationally. In the past two years, Lozano-Hemmer was the subject of 9 solo exhibitions worldwide, including a show at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, the AmorePacific Museum in Seoul, and a mid-career retrospective SFMOMA. His 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 light-bridge intervention across the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso (2019).