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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, the artist that brought us Pulse Corniche, that super cool art work on Abu Dhabi Corniche that lit up the sky with searchlights that responded to viewers' pulse rates, is coming back to the UAE with another equally interesting piece.
Carroll / Fletcher, his London gallery will present Pulse Index in their booth at Art Dubai, which they will completely transform into an installation space.
Pulse Index records participants' fingerprints and detects their heart rates. After each viewer places their finger on a sensor, the image of it appears on a large screen in front of them pulsating to their heart rate. As more people participate, the image switches to a smaller screen that shows last 765 fingerprints in a "horizon line of skin", until it eventually disappears.
The gallery will also bring an art work called Please Empty Your Pockets to the fair, which begins next week. This is an installation that consists of a conveyor belt fitted with a computerised scanner that records and accumulates everything that passes under it. The public are invited to place any small item on the conveyor belt, keys, ID cards, wallets, worry beads, notepads, phones, coins, or even credit cards. Once they pass under the scanner, it leaves behind a projected image, which will appear alongside other real objects that have been placed there. The work intends to blend presence and absence, using traditional techniques of augmented reality.
Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-Canadian is a really interesting artist whose profile is being increasingly raised around the world and his art is something everyone can relate to.
* Art Dubai runs from March 18-21 at Madinat Jumeirah. For more info visit www.artdubai.ae