Wavefunction

source: http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/wavefunction.php

 
--> This video appeared in my Facebook news feed the other day. It is a kinetic sculpture that responds to the body movements of the public who walks past it. It's part of whole Surveillance Art exhibit put on in Italy in 2007.
I like this piece because it reacts to the viewer, which makes it seem to have a personality of it’s own. In particular I like that there is a delayed reaction, so that the viewer must turn around to see the effects of their movements on the piece.

I’m curious about the use of chairs. I guess an empty chair suggests human presence, or the idea that humans do occupy this piece even though they aren’t visually represented in it. Also, a block of chairs like this looks like chairs in an a theatre or auditorium, a place where people go to all watch a spectacle. At the same time, the piece itself is a piece of surveillance art, meaning it relies on surveillance technology, which is sort of the opposite of the type of surveillance that happens in a theatre or an auditorium. One is done en masse, directly, and by consent; the other is covert, performed remotely through the use of machine, often without the consent of those being watched. There’s something strange here about how the surveillance aspect of the piece affects (causes movement in) the empty, plastic chairs (which may imply an empty plastic public?).

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer says in his artist’s statement:

The idea of a 'function' as a field for artistic experimentation is a motivation for this piece. Other references include: the mathematics of dynamic systems, capable of generating complex non-linear, behaviours, the materialisation of surveillance and turbulence and the anti-modular reinterpretation of the work of modern designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.

I like the idea of the “materialization of surveillance and turbulence,” that we can create art that manifests the invisible act of watching. Also, that the piece involves the generation of complex movement would qualify it as displaying Class 4 behavior according to Wolfram’s classifications, which as we discussed in class, seems to be the most pleasing type of behavior in art.