%0 Journal Article
%T Pulse on pulse: modulation and signification in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room
%A Merete Carlson
%A Ulrik Schmidt
%J Journal of Aesthetics & Culture
%D 2012
%I Co-Action Publishing
%R 10.3402/jac.v4i0.18152
%X This article investigates the relation between signifying processes and non-signifying material dynamism in the installation Pulse Room (2006) by Mexican Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. In Pulse Room the sense of pulse is ambiguous. Biorhythms are transmitted from the pulsing energy of the visitor's beating heart to the flashing of a fragile light bulb, thereby transforming each light bulb into a register of individual life. But at the same time the flashing light bulbs together produce a chaotically flickering light environment composed by various layers of repetitive rhythms, a vibrant and pulsating ¡°room¡±. Hence, the visitor in Pulse Room is invited into a complex scenario that continuously oscillates between various aspects of signification (the light bulbs representing individual lives; the pulse itself as the symbolic ¡°rhythm of life¡±) and instants of pure material processuality (flickering light bulbs; polyrhythmic layers). Taking our point of departure in a discussion of Gilles Deleuze's concepts of modulation and signaletic material in relation to electronic media, we examine how the complex orchestration of pulsation between signification and material modulation produces a multilayered sense of time and space that is central to the sensory experience of Pulse Room as a whole. Pulse Room is, at the very same time, a relational subject¨Cobject intimacy and an all-encompassing immersive environment modulating continuously in real space-time.
%K electronic media
%K signaletic material
%K signifying processes
%K modulation
%K Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
%K pulse
%K sensation
%K space
%K time
%U http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/18152/22798