08/30/2024

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Heartbeat

Pulse Park – an interactive light installation by Canadian-Mexican artist  Rafael Lozano-Hemmer – transforms Westpark at Bochum, Germany, into a sea of lights, brought to life by the heartbeats of passers-by.  A computer-operated sensor measures the activity of each visitor’s heart and translates the data into sound and light pulses.

The Westpark project is Lozano-Hemmer’s largest so far, bigger than his best known installation at Madison Square Park in New York.  The German site uses 250 theatre spotlights.

Below: The pulse of a visitor to the New York installation is translated into lighting.

Those in Toronto may remember Pulse Front, a matrix of light over Harbourfront, made with lightbeams from 20 powerful robotic searchlights, controlled by sensors that measured the heart rate of passers-by.

Lozano-Hemmer, based in Montreal, was born in Mexico and moved to Canada in his teens. He has an international reputation as a pioneer in the use of advanced technologies to create artworks that are continuously formed and re-formed based on data from audiences.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s biography, here.

His website, here.


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12 thoughts on “Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Heartbeat

  1. Ahhh… so beautiful…
    I wanna be in one of those parks with my special someone, and when the light dances I’ll say, “Honey, see how my heart dances for you?” 😀
    (I’m such a hopeless romantic ha ha ha)

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