Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who represented his country of origin during the Venice Biennale in the summer of 2007, had already earned recognition for a spectacular 2000 project, Vectorial Elevation, which used two distinct venues: the world-famous Zócalo Square in Mexico City and a Web site, with Internet users controlling immense spotlights and creating light sculptures in the skies above the city. This monumental work, to which it would be impossible to do full justice here, shares similarities with Subtitled Public (2005), which we present in our exhibition. The work draws on what Lozano-Hemmer calls “relational architecture,” which consists, not of creating buildings for human use, but rather of appropriating the human use of the urban environment by repositioning the site’s user. With his bold use of light in the Mexico plaza, the artist transformed the space into a Web venue and a one-of-a-kind show for the city. Through this work, Lozano-Hemmer also introduces strong connotations into both the site and the urban fabric. In Vectorial Elevation, the spotlights bring to mind the dynamism and glamour of this global city today and the anti-aircraft searchlights of another era. In Subtitled Public, the spectator is placed in the centre of the space and pursued by beams of light, invoking an impression of surveillance and profiling.

Visitors entering Subtitled Public are tracked and pursued by third person singular verbs that are projected on them as they move about the room. The only way to rid oneself of the projections is to touch another person. Visitors are not only subtitled, they are encouraged to communicate through touch, which becomes less a gesture dictated by space and more one that is a product of culture applied to that space. Lozano-Hemmer thus reveals an attribute of space through his use of a concealed device – here, a movement detection and surveillance system. The difference between virtual and relational architecture, according to the artist, is that one is defined through simulation, while the other functions through dissimulation. Yet, this dissimulation is intended solely to encourage sight, touch, action and interaction. In many of the artist’s works, we see a playfulness that offsets some of the darker connotations attached to the concept of surveillance.

J.G. © FDL 2007