Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at the MCA - 20 December

It has been a fairly hectic December for me so Christmas Drinks at the MCA seemed like a great opportunity to indulge in a little Christmas cheer and check out the new Rafael Lorenzo-Hammer show ...

The MCA at the moment is kind of like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, partially completed but fully operational as an art venue. Mexican/Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's show 'Recorder' takes up the entire renovated 3rd floor which is accessible from the George street entrance. I had never heard of this guy before rocking up which was great as with no expectations this show really easily exceeded them! Everything was interactive, some overt like the Pulse Room (where the punters get their pulse taken on something out of a gym and then your heartbeat is taken around the room on the flashing lights) and some covert like Tape Recorders (where sensors were recording how long punters stayed in the room and fed the data into some 25m stanley tape measures that had motors attache to extend them, pictured above). Pascale and I tried virtually everything out, it was like the art equivalent of being at sideshow alley at the Easter Show. It would take a long time to describe everything here but thankfully the MCA have their own microsite for the show which explains all the works.


Points - Tough this week as the whole show is great. I'll give 3 for the Pulse Room, 2 for Please Empty Your Pockets and 1 for Tape Recorders. This is on until 12 February 2012 so I would highly recommend getting down and getting all interactive with Rafael. The other highlight from this visit was the new rooftop function space where they had the Christmas drinks (and Feliz Navidad to the tequila company who sponsored this show, we are pretty partial to the agave spirit over here).







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