Rafael Lozano Hemmer

Rafael Lozano Hemmer is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist who works with ideas from architecture, technological theater and performance. His work can be considered as a blend of interactive art and performance art, using both large and small scales, indoor and outdoor settings and a wide variety of audiovisual techologies. 

He do works with lights for a long time, but he likes to do someting in the dark, the shadows. See Hemmer (1012) 

I am interesting in several art-works he done.

1. Third Person 

Here is a video shows his work:

 

 It shows the viewer's shadow revealing hundreds of tiny words that are in fact all the verbs of the dictionary conjugated in the third person. And it appears automatically to fill his or her silhouette. This work is a kind of similar with my idea of shadow. When people passby their body shape will appear on the LED lighting wall as a shadow or an animal's shadow. There is a  big diference between us. My shadow idea is focus on pattern, in other words, what is the pattern. My idea is use the pattern to attract people. Compare with me, his work concentrates on "behind" the pattern, how to make the pattern, how the pattern changes. when people realize there are something "behind" the pattern, they will have more then curiosity. I think Hemmer did a better job on handle people's mind.

 2. Subtitled Public

 

                                           see  http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/subtitled_public.php

It consists of an empty exhibition space where visitors are detected by a computerized surveillance system. When people enter the space, the system generates a subtitle for each person and projects it onto him or her: the subtitle is chosen at random from a list of all the verbs conjugated in the third person. The only way of getting rid of a subtitle is to touch another person, which leads to the two subtitles being exchanged. It is from Hemmer (2005).

 It isn't related to my ideas, but the way make people communicate is very interesting. In my ideas need some elements like this--to make people "play with".

3. Under Scan

                                                  Hemmer (2005)

It is a work doing in the shadows. In the installation, the portraits appear at random locations. They "wake-up" and establish eye contact with a viewer as soon as his or her shadow "reveals" them. As the viewer walks away, the portrait reacts by looking away, and eventually disappears if no one activates it.

I like this because it is diference from most of other light works. It use a specail way to focus on shadow. The light image appears in the shadow when the whole area is bright, which is i never seen that before. It is focus on an aspect that peope are always ignor. My ideas need some this  element.

Reference:

HEMMER, R. L., 2012. Open Air, Relational Architecture 19: Interview with James Ewing, Philadelphia. Available at: http://creatorsproject.cn/creators/rafael-lozano-hemmer--2)

HEMMER, R. L., 2005. Subtitled Public [online]. London: Hemmer, Rafael Lozano. Available at: http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/subtitled_public.php

HEMMER, R. L., 2005. Under Scan [online]. Lincoln, UK: Hemmer, Rafael Lozano. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQxLcxQAvOY

Bruce Nauman-Corridor with Mirror and White Lights

picture from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nauman-corridor-with-mirror-and-white-lights-t01753

Corridor with Mirror and White LightsIn his corridor pieces, Nauman's sculpture assumes the dimensions of architecture. The spaces in these corridors are often claustrophobic yet they seem to extend infinitely, like a corridor seen in a dream. In this piece, the extension of space is achieved by the placement of a mirror set at an angle at the end of the corridor. Some of Nauman's corridors are areas in which he or the viewer performs by entering the space. This is impossible here; the width of the corridor has been narrowed to make entrance impossible, thereby heightening the sense of eerie isolation in the piece.


Reference:
NAUMAN, BRUCE., 1971. Changing Light Corridor with Rooms [online]. London: ARS, NY and DACS. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nauman-changing-light-corridor-with-rooms-ar00044

match technology as experience framework

Secondly, how my case match technology as experience framework.

The sensual thread:

It is still visual effect to people.The colours, especially with lights has influece to people. Because of eyes are sensitive to light,  with colours together, it may costs more visual effect.

The emotional thread:

Warm colour make people feel warm when the temperature is low or have effects of happy, not lonely. cool colour make people "calm down" when the atmosphere is hot and dysphoric.

The compositional thread:

It brings people a kind of  convenience. Because corridor may too simple or bored, but people pass by every day, if it can give some intresting feelings or make people comfortable will be nice.

The spatio-temporal thread:

Consider before people cross the corridor, they may have different situations. but after they cross, i expect they feel comfortable, not feel corrior so long and bored.

corridor matches pleasure model 3

Psycho-pleasure:

When people walking in the corridor the light and the colour make them feel comfortable. Based on colour psychology,

Red: Its effect is physical, it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate.

Orange: It is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical and the emotional, it makes a sense of warm.

Blue: It is serene and mentally calming.(Psychological Properties Of Colours. Available at: http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours)

For example, people may feel lonely and scary when they walking by themselves. But when they pass by an area with lights and warm colours, the ights make people see things that give a safe sense and the warm colour make them blood runs faster then not feel lonely. when many people walk in corridor, cool colour make them calm down and not feel irritated.

ideo-pleasure:

I have no idea on this right now. It maybe a convenience or a comfort idea for daily life by the eare that people are not always pay attention.

corridor matches peasure model 2

Socio-pleasure:

In the corridor case, people have socio-pleasure by communication. Such as eye contact, body language, chating, and walking together. To lead people pay attention to others, I want to use patterns. Because base on Bauer and Mayer (2008), patterns have influence to people depends on common sense and visual effect. That means, symbols have meanings to human because of the understanding of these symbols rely on experiences, analysis of patterns of communication and interpretation. It is also mentioned by George, L. (1999).

For example: when people see these two symbols

they know they are "PLAY" and "ON/OFF" without read instruction.

So, make people pay attention to each other, i want to use patterns like arrows, it is already give people a image of direction. Therefore if the arrows point to each other, it will give a hunt to people pay attention to each other.

Reference:

BAUER, E. K., 2008. Orientation and Identity: portraits of international way finding systems. Wien; London: Springer.

George, L., 1999.  Art and the Semiotics of images: three questions about visualk meaning. Dillon university of Washington [online]. July. Available via: http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/signifiers/sigsave.html & Visual semiotics 

corridor matches pleasure model 1

For what I question myself, I want to give answers in this entrance.

Firstly, how my corridor project match pleasure model.

What of my project match physio-pleasure?
I expect people have pleasure by seeing lights with colours. Because, via many experiences I had and articles I found purity colours have significant visual effect. It is related to my idea, because I use lights with purity colour, such as orange and blue. Commonly, from the experiences, the majority colour range of human vision in daily life is low purity colours. For example, streets, buildings, trees, even sky. So when the high purity things appear, it is glamorous, always attract visual. And it also be proved in a book called Cinematography (Brown, B. 2002). It says, our eyes are not sensitive to all colour spectrum, it involves the physics of light. Another example is the colour of costumes always exaggerated, and many stars in most cases prefer colourful clothing, because the high purity color has come to the fore visual effect.(from a photography website that i can not find anymore.)


Reference:
Brown, B., 2002 Cinematography: Imagemaking for cinematographyers, directors and videographers. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.