Pulse Room

19.06 – 07.09 / 2014
Musée d’Art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal

Montrealers will finally have an opportunity to see Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Room here in their city, which is also the Mexican-born artist’s adopted home. This masterpiece of relational, interactive art, created in 2006, was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2007. In this vast installation, the heart rate of visitors, captured and transmitted by a computerized system, is turned into pulses of light in some 300 light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Minimalist music and cybernetics research also played a part in the artist’s development of this spectacular, sparkling work in which the beat of each visitor’s heart is added to that of thousands of others to produce a memorable experience.

The viewer experience is central to the approach of this electronic and multidisciplinary artist, who develops interactive installations that are at the intersection of architecture, sculpture and performance. Trained in physical chemistry, a master of shadow and light, Lozano-Hemmer creates platforms based on public participation, making use of technologies such as robotics, electronic surveillance and telematic networks.

The Musée d’art contemporain presented Lozano-Hemmer’s Frequency and Volume – Relational Architecture 9 in 2005. More recently, as part of The Québec Triennial in 2011, it exhibited Intersection articulée – Architecture relationnelle 18, a remarkable intervention in public space, which is now in the Musée Collection.