Powerhouse Museum

The interactive art of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: psychic resonance, surveillance and a murmuration of lights

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
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We are in the Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition Atmospheric Memory at the Powerhouse in Sydney.

Key Points: 
  • We are in the Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition Atmospheric Memory at the Powerhouse in Sydney.
  • The boy’s photograph was taken as soon as he entered the exhibition and then publicly projected onto his shadow.
  • Like the social media it replicates, the exhibition content is a product of its users – which can feel like theft.

Themes of surveillance

    • This work is a collaboration between Lozano-Hemmer and the pioneering Polish projection artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, and presents Wodiczko’s well-known theme of surveillance.
    • Read more:
      Not Big Brother, but close: a surveillance expert explains some of the ways we’re all being watched, all the time

      This type of art is what Lozano-Hemmer calls “relational architecture”, invoking the ideas of engagement and social experimentation (the “relational”) and the built environment.

    • Several toddlers, enchanted by the sounds and lights, run frantically away from their parents and back again.

Lost connections

    • This Sydney version of the show incorporates an eccentric variety of objects from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences’ collection.
    • The connections between these collection items and Lozano-Hemmer’s work are hard to understand, except that they all connect to the atmosphere in various ways … at a stretch.

Recreated, reformed and re-presented

    • The overarching idea for Atmospheric Memory is that voice activation and image recording can be stored then endlessly recreated, reformed and re-presented to the audience.
    • Lozano-Hemmer has repositioned Babbage’s interest in psychic resonance and spirit reflection alongside his technological forecasting.
    • But Babbage also fell for the late-19th-century mystic allure of life-death illusionism, replayed here as the virtual/real dichotomy.

All You Need to Know About the Two New Locations for Vivid Sydney 2022 — Central Station & The Goods Line

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, May 26, 2022
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By illuminating its windows with colour-changing cove lights and wall grazers, Sinclair accents the crumpled-looking exposed brick form with jewel-bright hues.

Key Points: 
  • By illuminating its windows with colour-changing cove lights and wall grazers, Sinclair accents the crumpled-looking exposed brick form with jewel-bright hues.
  • Seen from the Goods Line, Frank Gehry's unmistakable "paper bag" aesthetic suddenly looks as enticing as a bag of mixed lollies.
  • The Grand Concourse of Central Station becomes an impromptu concert hall with a different band performing every week.
  • The city's best spinners will hit the decks during Vivid Sydney on a new stage set up among the Light Walk along The Goods Line.