The Works

Please Empty Your Pockets (2010)

A conveyor belt with a computerised scanner that records and accumulates everything that passes under it. Visitors may place any small item on the conveyor belt, for example keys, ID, wallets, photographs, condoms, notepads, phones, amulets, credit cards and so on. Once they pass under the scanner, the objects reappear on the other side of the conveyor belt, beside projected objects from the memory of the installation. As a real item is removed from the conveyor belt, it leaves behind a projected image of itself, which is then used to accompany future objects. The work remembers up to 600,000 objects which are displayed beside new ones that are added to the installation. The project blends presence and absence using traditional techniques of augmented reality, such as those described in The Invention of Morel, a novel written in 1940 by Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares.

Autopoiesis (2010)

When people look at themselves in this small mirror they see the word ‘Autopoiesis’ projected on their forehead. The term ‘autopoiesis’ was coined by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Literally meaning self-production or creation, it refers to the way in which living beings are seen as systems that produce themselves, or regenerate, in a ceaseless way. An autopoietic system is at the same time the producer and the product. Lozano-Hemmer has suggested 'the concept of self-creation is an inspiration for all art that depends on participation to exist.' 

33 Questions per Minute (2000)

A computer program uses grammatical rules to combine words from a dictionary and generate 55 billion unique, fortuitous questions. The automated questions are presented at a rate of 33 per minute – the threshold of legibility – on 21 tiny LCD screens and on a projection outside the Museum. The system will take over 3,000 years to ask all possible questions. By means of a keyboard, members of the public can introduce any question or comment into the flow of automatic questions; user input is recorded for display on the internet. To a viewer (or to the authorities), it is impossible to determine whether a question has been generated by the computer or a human, because both are shown at the same time and anonymously. Lozano-Hemmer considers the work to be a ‘reverse Turing Test’, where the impossibility to discriminate between human and machine opens up the possibility for concealment and camouflage (the Turing Test was developed by British computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950 to try to find out whether machines can think like human beings).

Pulse Room (2006)

An interactive installation featuring one hundred clear incandescent light bulbs hung at a height of two metres. When someone holds a heart rate sensor interface, a computer detects their pulse and immediately sets off the closest bulb to flash at the exact rhythm of their heart. When the visitor lets go of the sensor, all the lights turn off briefly and the flashing sequence advances by one position down the queue, to the next bulb in the grid, pushing ahead all the existing recordings. At any given time, the installation shows the vital signs from the 100 most recent participants.

Pulse Room was inspired by Macario, a film made in 1960 by Mexican director Roberto Gavaldón. In one scene, the protagonist suffers a hunger-induced hallucination in which he sees each living person represented by a flickering candle in a cave. Pulse Room also refers to minimalist patterns in music (found, for example, in scores composed by Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich and Glenn Branca) and the postulation of the theory of cybernetics at the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City to explain the process of self-regulation of the heart.

Tape Recorders (2011)

Two rows of motorised measuring tapes record the amount of time that visitors stay in the installation. As a computerised tracking system detects the presence of a person, the closest measuring tape starts to project upwards. When the tape reaches around 3m high it crashes and recoils back. Each hour, the system prints the total number of minutes spent by the sum of all visitors.

 Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

People on People (2010)

An installation designed to displace the visitor’s image in real-time. The piece consists of floor-mounted projectors that cast the shadow of visitors onto a wall and another set of hanging projectors which project images inside their shadows. As people walk around the room, they see – inside their shadow – the live and recorded image of other visitors, while their own image is recorded for live or delayed playback inside the shadow of someone else. The piece uses high resolution surveillance cameras with face recognition and 3D tracking, turning the exhibition room into one of the world’s most advanced scanners. People on People is a continuation of Lozano-Hemmer’s search for experiences of co-presence; platforms where live transmission creates a sense of entanglement and puppetry. 

 Co-commissioned by Manchester Art Gallery, UK, and Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture, UK

Microphones (2008)

An interactive installation featuring 17 1939-vintage microphones, placed on mic stands at different heights. Each microphone has been modified so that inside its head is a tiny loudspeaker and a circuit board connected to a network of hidden control computers. When a visitor speaks into a microphone, it records their voice and immediately plays back the voice of a previous participant, as an echo from the past. Half of the voices played back are those of the most recent participant, whilst the other half are chosen randomly from up to 600,000 that each microphone can store.

The Year's Midnight (2011)

An installation that shows the visitor's image on screen, unaltered except for plumes of white smoke that emanate from their eyes, slowly filling the display with a dense white smog. Images of the eyeballs of the viewer, as well as those of previous viewers, accumulate at the bottom of the display. The work’s title is taken from the beginning of John Donne's mournful poem A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day.The display of eyeballs recalls traditional representations of St. Lucy (whose eyes were gouged out before she was martyred) for example, in Italian Renaissance painting.

Pulse Index (2010)

A biometric installation that records participants’ fingerprints at the same time as their heart rates. The piece displays data for the last 10,925 participants in a spiraling pattern. To participate, people introduce their finger into a custom-made sensor equipped with a 220x digital microscope and a pulsimeter. An image of their fingerprint immediately appears on the largest cell of the display, pulsating to their heart beat. As more people try the piece, one’s own recording travels sideways and is reduced in size until it disappears altogether. Pulse Index is like a memento mori – an artwork intended to remind us of our own mortality.

Seimoscope 2 (2009)

Seismoscope 2: Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali. Persian (1058-1111), author of ‘The Incoherence of Philosophers’ (2009)

The series Seismoscopes consists of devices that detect vibration around them, from footsteps to earthquakes, and record this vibration on paper using an automated XY plotter. As each Seismoscope registers seismic waves, it is programmed to draw an illustration of a single Skeptical philosopher, over and over again. This Seismoscope, for example, always draws the portrait of Persian philosopher Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111). The actual traces of the drawing follow a random path, although staying within the portrait image that has been burned into the memory of the device - thus, every drawing is different and reflects the daily activity in the Museum.

 Skeptical philosophers challenge knowledge, facts or opinions that are generally thought to be true, or taken for granted.

Close-up (2006)

An interactive display with a built-in computerised tracking system, the piece shows the viewer’s shadow revealing hundreds of tiny videos of other people who have recently looked at the work. When a viewer approaches, the system automatically starts recording and makes a video of him or her. Simultaneously, inside the viewer’s silhouette, videos are triggered that show up to 800 recent recordings. The system has recording space for around 100,000 videos and, after this, the oldest memories start to be replaced by newer ones.

Voice Array (2011)

As a participant speaks into an intercom, their voice is automatically translated into flashes of light and then this unique blinking pattern is stored as a loop in the first light of the array. Each new recording pushes all previous recordings one position down and gradually one can hear the cumulative sound of the 288 previous recordings. The voice that was pushed out of the array can then be heard by itself.

 Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney