Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist living and working in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He creates platforms for public participation by using robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his interactive works are “anti-monuments for people to self-represent.”

He emigrated to Canada in 1985 to study at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and then received his Bachelor of Science in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montreal. The son of Mexico City nightclub owners, Lozano-Hemmer was drawn to science but could not resist joining the creative activities of his friends. Initially he worked in a molecular recognition lab in Montreal and published his research in Chemistry journals. Though he did not pursue the sciences as a direct career, it has influenced his work in many ways, providing conceptual inspiration and practical approaches to create his work.