The public space is the stage; the citizens are the actors. This has been the concept of Mexican-born  and based in Montreal multimedia artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer -who has enchanted the world with ambitious interactive art installations- reflected on his artwork. For Lozano-Hemmer, public’s participation  is fundamental to finish up his creations.

“Normally all [of them] are interactive proposals: it is the public that complete the masterwork […].The work I generate would not exist without public’s participation,” Lozano-Hemmer says from his studio in Montreal in a phone interview.

The internationally laurated Mexican-Canadian artist’s undeniably talent got Vanoc officials' attention after they saw one of his installations at Toronto’s Festival LuminaTO in 2007, and asked Lozano-Hemmer to make a proposal for the Olympic Games. From several projects that he presented, the Vectorial Elevation was chosen and it will be displayed today at dusk in Vancouver as part of the Cultural Olympiad’s Digital Edition (CODE).

Vectorial Elevation

The Vectorial Elevation is a a large-scale temporary public art installation and consists of 20 robotic search lights that will create patterns in the sky and glowing on the waters of the English Bay from locations at Vanier Park and Sunset beach, comprising an area of 100,000 square metres and it will be visible within 15 kilometres of downtown’s core.

“People will be able to control the lights from the Internet and has been well tested through similar projects in other cities,”. This piece has been staged at the Zocalo in Mexico City for the Millennium Celebration, it has also been displayed in Ireland, Spain and France and it will be for first time in Canada.

Lozano-Hemmer, who lived in Vancouver between 1986 and 1987 before settling in Montreal, is very pleased to be in charge of this project and  he is confident that "it will come out very nicely" as it has already been tested by hundred of thousands of participants .

For the Winter Games, the multimedia artist focuses on the Olympic context emphasizing on an “utopia, romantic idea” of countries coming together without wars and the concept of an “international global vision” where everyone is able to access remotely a common space.

“The Internet precisely allows us to take the [physical] territory from the nations and make of it a common public space and people, let’s say, from Nigeria, Poland or Brazil are able to access this common space. The interesting thing for me in this particular project is that inspired me that vision of inclusion, which means, anybody can access the networks from any country in the world”.

The Vanoc estimates 130 thousand design patterns will be created during the 24 days of the project.

In addition, Lozano-Hemmer never stops working, while he is completing one piece, other installations are being exhibited in festivals, museums and biennales somewhere else as they can take from few months up to five years to be finished. It can take  a lot of time due to the  permits and   research  of the area that are needed  in order to ensure the safety of the environment.

Currently, he has a full-time team in Montreal of eight people, and for the Vectorial Elevation, 20 more were hired to work  in Vancouver.

When art meets science

Lozano-Hemmer's has been a multimedia artist for over 20 years and in 1990, he was awarded with a grant by the Canada Council for the Arts to help him with his project on technologic theatre, which allowed him  to focus on fusing his science background (he obtained in 1989 a bachelor's degree in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montreal) and his artistic vision without having to go back to work in science "to generate money".

He worked with friends that were choreographers, composers, actors and writers  and started ”to develop technologies that could employ for creative use and almost all my pieces have had that mix of art and technology in some way.”

For Lozano-Hemmer what glues art and science is the sense of uncertainty of the final result.

“The only tie that exists and it is very strong between science and art is the desire of experimentation, of trying things that don’t exist to see what happens, and that is something that rules in almost all my work. We have always developed pieces to see what will be the outcome,” Lozano-Hemmer says.

“If we conceive the artworks knowing which will be the outcome, then that would be utterly boring and there would not be reason to make the piece. Thus, we are always trying to do things that surprise us.”

Globalization and citizenship participation

The city transformation , as regaining its own identity is crucial for the 42 year-old artist. Lozano-Hemmer realizes that nowadays cities have lost their identities and whether it is Mexico City, London or New York, in reality, all of them  look, pretty much alike because it is more affordable. This idea of  buildings reacting to public participation is what Lozano-Hemmer calls “relational architecture".

“The main idea is that the cities are being homogenized. Today, the idea is when a politician talks about reinvigorate a space, it usually refers to adding 19th-century style lamps and Starbucks coffee shops in it; so [for me] the most important thing is that we realize the cities don’t represent anymore the citizens, they represent the capital”.

Lozano-Hemmer says that through interactive installations, the citizens are able to participate in the reinvidication –albeit temporarily- of their cities’ identities and distinctive glow and allows the city “to have a new formula that will present new registries, new questions and from there comes the need that I have that the citizen get a sense of participation, complicity, intimacy, relation with his city, instead of alienation, control, suspicion, separation or discrimination.“

This is why for Lozano-Hemmer is also important to emphasize that his work will contribute to give an open image of Vancouver by encouraging public participation, in contrast to the Beijing Summer Olympics, where the main focus was on the regime. “The marches and music played and represented were more totalitarian and the public was a mere passive spectator.”

“In Vancouver, however, what we are proposing is the public to have the will and the capacity to transform their own city: the message can’t be more different. Thus, for me it is a pride to present this art work in Vancouver, in that context.”

“Environmentally responsible”

The Vectorial Elevation, Lozano-Hemmer addresses vehemently, is an ecologically responsible project and will cause zero impact on the environment as he and his team have performed a "very strict scrutinity on the subject".  However, Lozano-Hemmer says while making the proposal for this project, he experienced some resistance at first when people heard about the numbers of energy use.

"Even though, for the Vancouver project we use the 20 more potent light projectors in the world, 10 thousand watts each,  it is a very enviromentally responsible piece."

“They become all nervous because for them sounds like an ecologic crime”, Lozano-Hemmer adds.

When, in fact, 200 thousand watts is only 10 percent of what is employed for hockey on ice games and all the sources utilized are renewable (from BC Hydro) which won’t contaminate or pollute, ensuring zero impact on the environment as well as using a carbon offset to make sure “that any carbon dioxide that we generate is neutralized through a project called carbon kidnapping, among others, for all our activities to have zero environmental impact.”

“[Don’t get me wrong,] I do like hockey, but I have never heard people criticize hockey because it uses a ‘lot of energy’, yet, [they do it] in this case,” Lozano-Hemmer says. “The only thing I ask is to be judged as they do with other activities”.

New projects on Earth and the outer space

"I am working on a new project for the Plaza Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia as well as a piece  in Johannesburg (South Africa) for the World Cup and a piece for the NASA," Lozano-Hemmer says.

“The one in Melbourne is a solar model. It’s a globe of 20 metres of diametre with projectors; a 1 to 100 million scale model of the solar surface. The piece for Johannesburg consists of gigantic shadows of 25 metres of height that people find in a public space, projected on a building.”

Both pieces will be staged in June this year.

When asked on the one for the NASA, Lozano-Hemmer responds cautiously due to a confidentiality agreement with the agency: "It is secret,” but offers, “it is for a space station”.

The freedom of the future

As for his goals art wise, Lozano-Hemmer does not have a established plan for his future. He lives and breathes the present as his artworks are completed and new ideas are unleashed, in a nutshell, the description of the marriage between art and freedom.

“I don’t have goals. I don’t have a very clear or established objective. Art is a reaction, an experiment, something that we do for curiosity, to search for connection, self-esteem, company, criticism; thus, I don’t have an established program to follow...In the future, I have no idea where my work will end, and that I call freedom, freedom to go wherever I want.“

To know more about Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and his art works visit his website: www.lozano-hemmer.com/.

If you want to know more about the Vectorial Elevation and participate, please visit: www.alzado.net/eintro.html and http://www.vectorialvancouver.net/home.html