[ Pulsing beat plays ] [ Slow intense music plays ] [ Indistinct chatter ] [ Laughter in distance ] [ Pulsing beat continues ] [ Chatter continues ] [ Mid-tempo orchestral music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Woman: Rafael's got such a wonderful way of creating these large visions.

You know, he always thinks big.

And yet, there is about them always a real intimacy, that people feel that they have a role in that project.

Man: He uses technology in a way that lets us see this paradoxical state that we're in, of being alive at this very moment, and he kind of puts you in the driver's seat.

Man 2: If you get them to understand the piece, then you are recruiting them to animate the public space.

Man 3: Astonishingly smart, deep thinking about technology and how to make that human.

How to make it visually interesting.

♪♪♪ Man 4: The idea that you can actually influence an architecture in public space... Is rare and is probably also quite radical.

[ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ General chatter ] Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: I believe there is a crisis in the way people are not represented by their cities anymore.

And so, any artwork that can interfere with what is the city supposed to be and what are we supposed to do, and not to do in public space.

Anything that interferes with that, I think is really welcome.

Christophe Donner from le Monde wrote a review of my Paris show.

It was called Le mégalo démocrate.

I thought, "Oh, yeah, this really captures my obsession with participation."

Somehow, what I want is for people to feel like their presence has an urban scale, and that they have a platform to self-represent.

Woman: Hi, huge guy.

[ Indistinct chatter, laughter ] [ Laughter ] The Occupy movement itself is a good example of people taking over public space and saying, "We need to be counted."

So megalo-democracy is a way to take a stand.

It gives us some hope that people can feel like they own their city.

[ Pulsing ] [ Keyboard clacking ] So as an artist with no particular specialty, as someone who cannot draw, play a musical instrument.

Someone who can't keep a beat, I became a generalist.

[ Keyboard clacking ] The job of an artist without talent is to be interstitial, like you're in-between media.

In fact, my daughter Julieta told me when she was like 4 years old, she said, "Daddy, you're not really an artist 'cause you don't know how to draw."

Then she took me to the side and said, "Don't worry, I'll teach you."

But I have a dependency on collaborators, people who are really good at what they do.

It is important to focus.

The question is when you're a generalist, what do you focus on?

You're focused on connections.

Niom?

We're gonna have two projectors, pointing straight down, covering that area.

But you'll have more shadows if you have it here.

I see.

So then, let's do what you said, which is put it sideways on the truss, so then you can go higher up.

Man: Is this the way?

I'm so excited.

[ Claps ] it's gonna splash everywhere, right, is what you're saying?

Probably.

Oh, forget the Plexi.

[ Speaks Spanish ] look, everybody.

This is what we do now.

In university, I studied chemistry.

And I always thought, "Okay, this is what I wannna do.

I wanna...create experiments where you mix two substances and you don't know the outcome."

Oh, yeah.

I have never met an artist that isn't into experimenting.

So, the desire to put things together the synthesis of new things, you know, they're intersections between art and science.

We're gonna take the words of poet Octavio Paz who wrote about the moment where the written text becomes voice.

[ Water burbling ] And we're gonna write that text on a big basin of water and then, all of a sudden, the words of Octavio Paz will come out from the fountain.

And so it's just this idea that the words become ephemeral, and that you can breathe them in and so on.

[ Up-tempo Latin music plays ] ♪ Uno, dos, tres, quatro ♪ ♪ Cinco, seis, sieti, ocho ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ My parents were nightclub owners and part of their life, and definitely something that I absorbed from them is the importance of being a good host.

The importance of being able to throw a good party.

Art needs to have that kind of quality, and everybody knows that the party is not just the DJ, and it's not the lighting, it's not the drinks.

That all helps, but the party is the people who are in it and are having fun at it.

♪♪♪ My dad was a fun disaster... with whom, you know, you could always party.

And...I have fond memories of my family being together, for a brief period of time.

This lasted not too long.

And always being surrounded by their clubs.

They were pioneers, for instance, in bringing transvestite shows in Mexico, which back then was unheard of.

It was a very homophobic place.

They had a discotheque called Mamá Carlota, which was a crazy nightclub in Cuernavaca.

So in the Lozano family, you had on the one hand the nightclubs and the restaurants and the drinking and the excess.

But you also had Octavio Paz-Lozano, the key intellectual of our time and he was my uncle.

[ Intense orchestration plays ] Octavio Paz was very influential in my life.

He wrote a lot about art and he always emphasized the idea that language was, in a way, the shadows of artworks.

♪♪♪ We're in front of a work called Airborne.

I've been working with shadow plays for a really long time.

Started around 1997 with the very first piece which would transform a very large building in Austria.

And it was a project that used shadows to create a kind of more now, expressionistic, representation onto this military building.

[ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪♪ And I thought the shadow had this monstrous quality.

♪♪♪ And, turned out that people found it really playful.

Seeing themselves amplified to the size of a building, and to me, it was a really fascinating change in the way that I understood the shadow.

So...the next piece that I made in the shadow play series, is one called body movies.

[ Mid-tempo Latin music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ The plaza is activated with these two very, very bright projectors, which cast the portraits of hundreds of people taken in the city of Rotterdam.

And then two other projectors, which are on the ground, are shining such a bright light, you're basically hiding the portraits.

♪♪♪ As you cross the path of the bottom projectors, inside of your shadow, you reveal the portraits of others.

This is a very strange game of reverse puppetry, right?

As you walk close to or far away from the facade, your shadow grows from two meters, all the way to 30.

And an improvised narrative starts happening with the piece.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Turns out that the shadow's a very natural way for people to participate.

♪♪♪ The shadow, somehow, is a location of the subconscious, or otherness, that has appeared in literary traditions and in most visual art that I'm also very attracted to.

♪♪♪ [ Laughter ] Man: The shadow can do something that... You would not authorize yourself to do.

And therefore, with children and adults, you can see a lot of this happening in...

In this installation, for example.

Like your shadow is a bit more evil.

It's a sort of carnival kind of space.

♪♪♪ Rafael: That project started in Holland, but it's been to New Zealand, to Hong Kong, to... Just about 12 countries.

[ Laughter ] [ Projector whirring ] [ Indistinct chatter ] [ Speaking French ] [ Speaking French ] Woman: [ Speaking French ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Cameron: Well, I think the idea that you're both the subject of the piece, as well as the viewer of the piece, it's a very unusual feeling.

There's very few art experiences today that give you that kind of double awareness at the same time.

[ Indistinct chatter ] [ Laughter ] [ Indistinct chatter ] You're seeing yourself reflected in this system.

I almost think of it as a kind of spider web.

It's not that you see yourself trapped, but you see yourself suddenly... connected in a way that you may never have imagined before.

[ Projector whirring ] It used to be that you were asked to go into a museum... to be inspired by the work of a painter, for instance.

Today the situation is actually an inversion of that.

It is the artwork that looks at you, and senses you and hears you, and it is the artwork that is expecting you to do something interesting with it.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Pulsing beat plays ] ♪♪♪ My wife was pregnant with twins.

And uh, we went to the doctor and, you know, I found that the ultrasound machine can allow you to listen to the heartbeat of the foetus.

And, being a nerd, I asked for two ultrasound machines, because I wanted to hear the heartbeat simultaneously of the two kids.

It was actually quite incredible to listen to the heart of the boy, the heart of the girl at the same time, my Rafita and my Ali, syncopate and create this kind of rhythmic repetition.

Reminded me a little bit of like, minimalist music, like Conlon Nancarrow or Steve Reich or Philip Glass or...Glenn Branca.

Any of these guys who like, kind of have these repetitions but they're slightly out of phase, so they come in and out of phase.

They resonate.

My twins were doing that.

And I thought, "Wow, why can't we grab that?"

This kind of very intimate biometric, our electricity.

And...and just visualize it in a room, with light, with sound.

And have a sense of, uh... on the one hand, of closeness and of intimacy, but on the other, of difference, you know?

And of, of, uh...

This kind of syncopation and the creation of something that resonates much grander than the individual heartbeat.

[ Low pulsing beat plays ] ♪♪♪ [ Indistinct chatter ] ♪♪♪ Rafael: You're going to go next.

That's Rafael.

Child: Sounds like music.

That's right.

And now it turns all of them off.

So he's just added his heartbeat.

And everybody before him gets moved down one position.

♪♪♪ [ Up-tempo symphonic music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ I'm thinking that maybe I'll start it up, just so that... You wanted to put the lights on.

I'm gonna put them on.

Hi.

So um, we're gonna start the piece then now.

Man: I'll start it up.

With pulses?

Correct.

Okay, here it comes.

[ Whooping ] Okay...Alright.

[ Cheering, applause ] [ General chatter ] I'm delighted to be in New York, in Madison Square Park, for this, my very first project in public art in the United States.

One of the reasons I've never worked in the states is because often times sponsors want to convert it into a grand prix, and put logos everywhere.

I think that that's a real mistake, and it backfires on the supporter and on the artist.

So it's really elegant that there is a little place where the logos are there, but more than anything, it's a place for people to be.

Alright.

[ Cheers and applause ] This one...and this one.

So, we're gonna wait... for the computer to detect your electrical activity in your heart.

And then it's gonna start very slowly taking over the park.

So right now we're seeing the 200 previous ones.

Now it's detected you...

Okay?

And now...

The park, 150,000 watts, are being controlled by your heart right now.

How's the heart looking?

It's looking really good.

[ Laughter ] That was my big concern.

[ Laughing ] Yeah, yeah.

So that's...the entire park is now beating to you.

How wonderful!

Instead of going to the doctor... That's right.

You can come get some art.

And when you release it, all the lights turn off.

So, release the sensor.

Should I let go?

Yeah.

So now they turn off... And now, the very first light bulb is where you are, and Martin's been bumped one position.

So-so everybody has been bumped one position and right now you have the 200 most recent participants.

Rafael: Go ahead.

Woman: Are you the artist?

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

[ Laughs ] ♪♪♪ Woman: You gotta be kidding me.

♪♪♪ And when you release it, it'll go to the first one.

I don't know if I wanna let go.

[ Laughter ] It was very empowering to hold the sensors and then, when it started to register, to see the pulsing of your heart inside the whole park was very cool.

I didn't wanna let go, it was really cool.

It was so cool, like, just like, how you see your heartbeat.

'Cause you can't see it in real life.

♪♪♪ That way of engaging passer-bys in a public space is very hard to achieve, you know?

Normally they'll take a look at your piece, they won't understand, they'll move on.

"Look at the lights moving, we've seen lights moving."

But if you get them to understand the piece, then you're...kind of recruiting them to animate the public space.

And every piece that he does, I always look for how he solved... the hook.

You know, the place where people get hooked.

In this particular case, it's this thing you grab and registers your heartbeat.

That is a very important design decision.

That's really creepy, and awesome at the same time.

[ Chuckles ] And, you know, he keeps coming up with good hooks.

♪♪♪ Fitzpatrick: one of the descriptions of man is homo ludens... man at play.

Playful man.

And one of the things that I think is characteristic of all of Rafael's works...

There's this wonderful playfulness.

So, he de-terrorizing people... About technology.

He's making it magical... Rather than impenetrable and unknowable.

And that playfulness... is not a lack of seriousness.

On the contrary, for me, that's supreme seriousness.

♪♪♪ [ Sirens wailing in distance ] [ Up-tempo Latin music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ramirez Vazquez.

Modernist architect.

He's still alive...

The architect.

I wonder what he would say...

When we transform his architecture.

When I came up with Voz Alta, I was thinking about the estridentista poets.

Estridentista poets were poets in the 1920s, who were the real pioneers of radio broadcasting in the country.

It's amazing to me that poets were using this new medium of electromagnetic waves to communicate their manifestos.

They have a manifesto for antenna man.

Now, one of these poems is called, uh, Magnavox.

And Icaza, in this poem, describes this huge loudspeaker, this amplification device, on the top of the Popocatepetl volcano, and through which Diego Rivera and other intellectuals could speak to the general public.

I really like the idea of this technology amplifying our voice.

[ Symphonic music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Man: looking good, huh?

Rafael: This is called the Plaza of the Three Cultures.

The three cultures being of the Aztecs, so there's this pyramid where the last Aztec emperor was -- was killed.

Then you have the colonial church, which is in-fact made out of the very same stones that the pyramids were made of, so...and in the same place.

And then you have the modern, sort of buildings surrounding the area, which represents modernity.

And the actual killings took place in that building complex to the right.

[ Crowd cheering ] Rafael: In October 2nd, 1968, about ten days before The Olympics were to start in Mexico City, the military and the secret police attacked thousands of students and bystanders at a peaceful protest.

[ Man speaking indistinctly ] [ Helicopter blades whirring ] [ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪♪ [ Gunfire ] Hundreds of students were murdered, and the media was silenced.

♪♪♪ Aguinaco : [ Speaking Spanish ] Rafael: I really needed to come up with how, not just to represent that tragedy, but also how to play back that history in the context of people speaking today, activating their city in a way that perhaps the student movement of '68 would have been proud of.

[ Chanting in Spanish ] [ Cheering ] [ Crowd clamoring ] [ Drums play ] [ All chanting in Spanish ] [ Drums continue ] Rafael: In Spanish we say, "You are from the place where your dead people are buried."

And this is it for me.

This is where my father is buried, my grandparents.

Uh, it is where all of my family lives.

When I'm here, I feel a special kind of vibrancy, and I'm very honored and proud to be here doing this kind of work.

Rafael: So exciting.

Are you excited?

Man: Yeah.

Was that your voice actually controlling it?

Yeah.

Okay.

[ Speaking Spanish ] So, these levels are set.

Okay.

But I don't know if you have control because he wireless is still down here.

Do you want me to bring it out?

[ Man speaks Spanish over radio ] [ Conversing in Spanish ] [ Radio bleeps ] [ Dramatic music plays ] So, Gideon, we don't have a connection to the tower.

[ Radio bleeps ] [ Man speaks Spanish over radio ] Can they send out all the connections?

DMX is perfect.

♪♪♪ [ Radio bleeps ] [ Conversing in Spanish ] Rafael: Can we put this computer up there with local lan tech?

Yeah, yeah.

We can.

So we take an FM radio...unit.

We take the output of that and it goes into this computer and all it does is it makes the lights blink.

In other words, we have one unit up there, with its own DMX, and one unit down here with its own DMX.

Okay, okay.

This goes up.

My MacBook goes up.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Okay.

So, that's it.

So now put it in the MacBook.

Is that what's happening?

Come...come down.

♪♪♪ So the wireless connection between the building and the main control centre failed, probably because of the rain.

Or probably because it's from Sweden.

So...

It's finished.

It didn't work.

So, Gideon right here saved the day by making a little transistor radio that one of the security guards had and sort of plugging into a different laptop which is now controlling the lights upstairs.

So now we don't need a wireless link, because they're just tuning the radio frequency from the FM radio, converting it into light directly.

Now we're running to do that with a microphone.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Now we need to do a test and sound cue.

Okay.

[ Speaking Spanish ] ♪♪♪ Ready?

Okay.

Okay.

[ Tone sounds ] ♪♪♪ [ Man speaking Spanish ] [ Tone sounds ] [ Man speaking Spanish ] [ Woman speaking Spanish ] [ Man speaking Spanish ] [ Woman speaking Spanish ] [ Rafael speaking Spanish ] [ Rafael speaking Spanish ] [ Rafael speaking Spanish ] [ Rafael speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Camera shutters clicking ] [ Applause ] [ Indistinct ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] Medina: Many of the works of Lozana-Hemmer have to do with trying to empower people.

At least to demonstrate the possibility of empowering...people.

And I think that is one of the most important political limits of his work.

[ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] Medina: It's actually giving people, at least for a moment, the opportunity to speak to the world.

This is, of course, an opportunity that we are not given...normally.

Radio stations, even university radio stations, are not public spaces in that sense.

And at least for a few days...

The university radio station...

This night is a public space because of this work.

[ Speaking Spanish ] [ Applause ] [ Speaks Spanish ] ♪♪♪ Woman: [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] ♪♪♪ [ Speaking Spanish ] Man: [ Speaking Spanish ] Woman: [ Speaking Spanish ] Gardea: what's beautiful about this, more than the historical aspect, is the fact that the voice is projected and it is a light and it streams across the city.

You have a beautiful valley with the mountains surrounding and you can imagine it almost hitting different points of the -- of the city.

So, I mean, I think it's very powerful.

[ Woman speaking Spanish ] [ Man speaking Spanish ] My process to develop work is to be in denial.

I overbook the studio in ways which are truly unrealistic.

Those guys there are making the circuit boards for the evaporation fountains.

Caro, normally, she's doing research.

And Sergio is working on a neon and on a fountain... And some spheres.

Somehow through my ADHD self, think that things will work out.

And even though you may be planning some of these pieces for years, you're still improvising at the very end.

Because you don't have access to these computers or technologies or projectors until the very last moment, 'cause you can't afford to have them.

And, it's funny because I have tried a variety of different chemical drugs to help my situation.

The first one I tried was this Ritalin.

Right?

As soon as I was, um...

Diagnosed with ADHD, took this pill.

Which all of a sudden, made me look at the work, at the world, in a realistic fashion.

I looked at my calendar, and I'd go completely depressed.

It was as though I could see the world through my wife's eyes, you know?

It was kind of like, "Oh, s**t." "There's no way I can do all of this."

So I got off of Ritalin so that I can continue living my life of denial.

[ Mid-tempo Latin music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Fireworks explode ] ♪♪♪ [ General chatter ] [ Crowd cheering ] Okay, Conroy, so you know, I can get to participate piece, so I'm happy.

"Okay, we have to test it though."

"I need a minute."

I understand.

Okay, but don't worry.

I mean, if not, I'll resort to the other one, but I hope that it'll be the other one.

So you're all set over there?

Yes, we are.

Is it okay if I turn it on, like the lights on for one second?

Forget about that.

Just enter it and... start the queue.

Man: About 30 seconds to us.

What are we looking at, Rafael?

Well, we're looking at a very large interactive installation that allows people to go into a website and make a light design that will take over the entire English Bay with these powerful searchlights.

So you literally go onto this website, you see Vancouver in three-dimensions.

Kind of like a video game.

You select certain searchlights, you move them around, you make zigzags or whatever design.

Once you're happy, you send it with your name, and then every 12 seconds, in the night's sky over Vancouver, a new design is displayed as it comes from the internet.

Right now, is it on automatic, or have there already been things put in?

We started today at noon, and we've already got hundreds of people sending in their designs.

So these are things people have submitted.

That's correct.

I've already read a few of the comments and dedications people are sending in.

I read one design that was talking about a dedication to someone's sibling who had just recently died.

Or we've seen marriage proposals already, here in Vancouver.

So it's exciting to see how people have usage of it.

And if the usage is political, I think that's only natural in democratic society.

[ Indistinct chatter ] [ Mid-tempo dance music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ So, um, It's all so beautiful.

I'd love to lie here for hours watching it.

Check out my design, check out participators.

Like blowing bubbles when you were a kid.

Have a go.

Come play tonight.

It's like a pump blowing bubbles.

Now, you've done this all over the world.

Yeah.

Explain that.

Yeah, it's a project that was originally commissioned to transform the Zócalo Square in Mexico City.

We've shown it in Ireland.

We've shown it in Spain.

We've shown it in France.

And one of the neat things about interactive art, is that the public is an integral part of the work.

There's no public.

There's no show.

It's as easy as that.

So in a way, what you're doing, you're not setting up a sculpture, you're setting up like the museum.

And then people come in and populate that museum.

♪♪♪ Rafael: This project is using the world's brightest searchlights.

They each consume 10,000 watts of power.

And that means there's 200,000 watts of power being consumed, which is a lot.

At the same time, it's important to realize that 200,000 watts of power is approximately a tenth of what a typical hockey game is consuming.

It's true that during the design and the test sort of phase, we did, like, shine a couple times into peoples' windows, and I apologize for that.

It was uh...sort of, rusty um... moments in the set-up, but now it's all sorted out.

Man: When there's a collision with a building or anything, we have to turn them off.

Why?

Because otherwise, you're gonna be in the papers for the next month in a very bad way.

No, no, no.

No, seriously.

This is the instruction Ann's got.

Ann's told me if you hit a building, turn it off until you fix it.

Yeah, but he's already raised the level.

So, right now it's on.

What I'm saying is he already raised the level.

Yeah.

Four shots ago it was parked horizontally into the tent.

Okay, so we're -- No, no.

But that was spill.

No, that was spill.

It was the actual lights.

Okay.

Alright.

So, we're gonna talk about this, okay?

But I understand what you're saying.

What I'm saying is -- I understand.

I got to take this.

I'm sorry.

I understand.

It's gonna get better, though.

Yesterday, at 6:20, I met our evil neighbor.

6:20 a.m.?

A.m., and he was really pissed.

He was literally about to punch me.

He says, "This is me not having had any sleep.

Guys, take off your shoes, please, when you're in the apartment," la-la-la.

I said, "Listen, sorry.

You know, we're gonna..." The downstairs neighbor?

The downstairs neighbor is really unhappy with us because we roll around and we... throw boxes and stay up all night, every night.

[ Sighs ] Alright.

And just so you know, the stupid lady that has been driving me nuts and calling my cellphone and just leaving messages and whatever, she went all the way to the top of the city.

And, uh -- Yeah.

And, uh, she was just going on and on.

And then a very senior officer at the city of Vancouver said to her, "Listen, lady, there's two million people "in Vancouver and most of them love this piece.

"We've received three complaints.

So my suggestion to you is that you get some curtains."

And you know what she said?

She said, "Oh, well, that's not very appropriate."

And I said, "Well, that's not very appropriate, "but that's what the city of Vancouver thinks.

That's the opinion of the city of Vancouver."

And I thought it was just so great, you know, finally somebody standing up for me because I've been having to take all the hits, you know?

Alright, man.

So listen, um, we'll stay in touch.

Take it easy.

Bye.

♪♪♪ Woman: Can we still go down to the other one down there?

It's been interesting to me, the amount of initial resistance that the project received.

But I predicted that once the project were alive, a lot of these voices would quiet down, and that's what we've seen.

All the lights rotating around, it's -- it's pretty beautiful.

I think it's 'cosmic.

It's definitely something that you'll never see -- Like, we were just talking about that.

You'll just never see this ever again in your lifetime.

♪♪♪ Hull: Rafael speaks to the existence of a larger community.

Even if it's ephemeral, even if it doesn't last for very long, I think it makes us feel better.

And so a project that would be lighting the skies, that people around the world were part of orchestrating speaks exactly to the spirit of the Olympic Movement and that moment in time where we all stop and say, "We are part of a larger world family."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rafael: The expectations that we have about how a city needs to be used, how it needs to be occupied -- they're extremely conservative.

Alrighty, man.

Take it easy.

Good luck.

Bye.

The powers that be subdivide the entire city into homogenous zones that are for shopping, for living, for partying.

And in fact, it is thanks to the mixing of all of these things that a city becomes vibrant and interesting.

Sadly, our politicians think that the way to achieve a certain kind of peace and freedom in public space is to plaster the place with surveillance cameras.

They believe that the answer to a terrorist threat is technological.

And that is just so absolutely ridiculous because anyone can understand that the problem of terrorism needs to be solved at the level of culture, not at the level of technology.

Surveillance has always been a big part of my work.

I think especially after the revelations of Snowden, we know that the regime of total control is not something that's futuristic.

It's not Orwell anymore.

It's not science fiction.

And in many works, such as this one, "Zoom Pavilion," we tried to make this about this kind of apparatus.

[ Indistinct conversations ] It's a collaboration with Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko.

And it tracks relationships between individuals, recording, for instance, the distance between different partners, how long they were together, and where they were moving around.

And it is a challenge to misuse these technologies, which are policing and military, and create a different kind of experience.

Perhaps the best example of that in my work is a piece called "Under Scan."

[ Lively Latin music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Matt, is he working now on the focus?

Yeah.

On focus.

On focus?

I've also told him to err on the side of easier triggering.

Look at that f***ing camera.

Can you believe that?

I know.

[ Indistinct speaking over radio ] Okay, Conroy.

Yeah, I know.

It's really moving.

Even the portraits are shaking a lot, as well.

Rafael: Today our enemy is wind.

What happened with this piece is we have these tiny little cameras that are actually surveilling all of the area.

They did not give us permission to put the tiny cameras on the facade of the National Gallery because it's a listed Heritage building, despite the fact that it already has dozens of cameras in place.

And what that meant is that we had to build these towers, which are like 11 meters tall, to hang our little cameras.

And of course the towers sway with the wind.

And if the camera is trying to detect where somebody is and the camera is moving left to right, then you can't do the project properly.

So we're very, very afraid of that tonight.

Conroy has some ideas on how to solve it, like, to actually track the camera and try and correct for the movement from the wind.

But it just sort of adds and adds and adds to the complexity of what we're trying to do in this short amount of time.

Bailey: Well, Trafalgar Square is a tricky site because it's of importance culturally, and it means that -- basically, the effect of that is that it's awkward to work in because everything you need to do needs to be absolutely, um...perfect and presented as such.

There's all these different governments and institutions that have control over it.

For example, this right here is the city of Westminster, where we have our permits.

Now, as of that line right there is the Greater London Authority.

But we don't have a permit to actually put any load on their territory.

Now, I'd like to point your attention to the encroachment that we're doing from Westminster into the greater London territory, also known as 15 f***ing centimeters.

[ Laughter ] Never before have I wanted so badly to have the Mexican civilized system of bribing to make this go away.

Because in Mexico, there's common sense and financial need.

The real tragedy of this kind of art is that the very first day is the most important day.

That's when the press comes.

That's when the funders come.

That's where your friends come.

This one needs focusing.

And so if you blow it on the very first day, it's hard to recover from that.

I think this is an example of blowing it on the first day.

She's right now there.

There's somebody there, over behind.

Yeah.

So don't go away.

She's gonna disappear.

One, two, three, gone.

There's one right there.

There's one right here.

And if you wake her up... Hello?

She doesn't like me.

She's like, "Oh..." I need him to decrease the interactive area to only the center.

Do you see Kevin in there, Conroy?

I'm so happy to have you guys here, and I'm sorry that I'm moving you all over the place.

I'm sorry about the changes.

Yes, it is.

And that's why I'm asking.

It opens tomorrow, people.

Come on.

Give us a break.

It opens tomorrow.

Today is the preview.

♪♪♪ Alright.

I'm in a bad mood.

Hi, Rodge.

They've got one or two technical problems here.

As of this second, it's not working.

We are gonna have to wing this a little.

Let's do it.

That's what we're seeing.

We can't lie.

No lie.

It's the BBC.

Okay.

Alright.

So, this is what we're gonna see.

Cool.

Good evening, Carolyn, and welcome to Trafalgar Square.

There's a projected video image of somebody else there.

It's a woman.

The artist is a man, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

Welcome to "PM."

Hi.

Nice to see you.

Cheers.

Can we call you, what, an electronic artist?

Yeah, that's good, or experimental artist is good too.

I like the idea that these are experiments.

That's why today, as we're doing our final tests, we really don't know what the outcome will be.

We'll see -- As Londoners come and experience the piece, we'll see what kind of effect it has.

♪♪♪ It's like a robot.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Laughter ] Paintings don't move as much, and they're in a frame, but this -- they move and they -- It's like they're really arguing with you.

♪♪♪ Man: You're standing on one.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪♪ Rafael: So, the job of the artist is to create moments of particular eccentricity, where people, they've been walking down the same plaza for 20 years, and then, all of a sudden, they look down and there's somebody inside of their shadow.

♪♪♪ Ride: Trafalgar Square, it's got fountains and blocks of water and walls and stuff so people can't congregate -- because in the 1900s everyone was afraid of massive revolution of people.

So, it's supposedly "For the people," but it's actually not for the people.

It's about actually managing the people.

So, this is lovely 'cause it really is about the people.

♪♪♪ This is a really good thing.

[ Laughter ] [ Siren wailing in distance ] [ Sea gulls squawking ] ♪♪♪ Rafael: As you reach out your hand, you'll touch the person who's on the other side.

Because on the other side, it's exactly the same idea as here.

Okay.

It gets more impressive as it gets darker, as you'll see.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rafael: It's a piece that is very much about amplifying human presence.

These surveillance cameras are always making you small, right?

You always end up in a tiny little monitor.

Here, we're taking it and making it the exact opposite phenomenon.

♪♪♪ [ Laughter ] If you look at the sandbox, you see tiny little people walking around.

And those people are in fact the ones that are at the beach.

So, people share three scales.

♪♪♪ We're living in extremely lonely times.

You know, I think that as people walk around the streets with their iPods, they're listening to their own music, as you're texting somebody, you're sort of closed-in to not connect to other people, other than in a corporate or a commercial environment.

♪♪♪ [ Indistinct shouting, laughter ] Huhtamo: Interactive art has a very strong tactile dimension, whether you physically touch something or just touch them at a distance.

So there is a link with these childhood experiences, but naturally interactive art takes these experiences on another level.

[ Crowd laughing, cheering ] Rafael: There's always a dance going on in a public space to make sure you're not making anyone uncomfortable with your proximity.

But these projects are exactly about the opposite, are about how you can overlap people on people.

♪♪♪ See that?

Yeah, that's a good one.

Nice.

[ Crowd shouting, laughing ] ♪♪♪ Why is he standing on my hand?!

♪♪♪ [ All groaning ] [ Indistinct conversations ] [ Truck beeping ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Man 1: You should b hearing stuff on speaker one.

You getting anything?

Man 2: Yeah, we're getting track 78 out of speaker one.

Then move onto the next one.

But look how much better it looks now.

Man: Okay.

6:45.

15 minutes away.

We'll probably run it at 7:30, by the looks of it now.

[ Indistinct conversations ] Yeah, we're on track to be late.

♪♪♪ Rafael's listening now.

It's still low.

It's still low.

Man: Okay.

Do it again, do it again.

Test four.

This is test four.

Test four.

This is test four.

Rafael: So, give me more volume and all the speakers, all of them.

Man: Upping the master volume to 0.2.

How about that?

The tracks are a little quiet but that's okay.

Just run it, okay?

We need to let people in.

There's a big line-up.

Okay.

Okay, let's let people in!

Come on!

Let's do a show.

♪♪♪ So let them in.

[ All cheering ] And right now, as we're getting the first people going in, how many recordings other than the mechanical recordings do we have?

Man: We have six recordings of me.

Did you say something really poetic and smart?

It just says "test."

We need to work on your poetry, man.

10-4.

[ Chuckles ] "10-4," he said.

"10-4."

"Work on poetry.

10-4."

[ Laughs ] [ Crowd cheers ] [ Laughing ] This is awesome .

♪ Today is my birthday ♪ ♪ Today is my birthday ♪ Kristen, we're standing in the middle of the first of three summer street celebrations three consecutive Saturdays in New York City.

We went into the Park Avenue Tunnel.

For the first time in 100 years, a crowd went in there .

And he created what we saw, which was what?

It's called "Voice Tunnel."

It's an interactive installation which was made out of 300 theatrical spotlights, which are illuminating the entire tunnel with arches of light.

And these arches of light are glimmering, or flashing, if you will.

They're actually reacting to the voices of people who participate through a microphone that is in the middle of the tunnel.

Land shark.

Land shark.

You speak your mind into this mic, and the system records your voice.

So, as you're walking down the tunnel, you're hearing the voices of 150 New Yorkers who just participated, and you can add your voice into the artwork and become part of the installation.

Hello!

Juanita!

Whoo!

[ Both ululating ] [ Laughter ] [ Ululating ] ♪♪♪ Sadik-Khan: The enthusiasm and excitement is palpable, and to stand in this tunnel and to see the wave of light and the wave of sound come at you, it's like nothing else.

And the joy that you hear from New Yorkers, the oohing and aahing -- You know, New Yorkers can be a skeptical bunch.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Very good.

Okay.

Rafael: Yeah, I'm not going in there.

I just got too nervous.

No, you know something?

It's awesome.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Are people liking it?

Yes.

It's amazing to watch people learn what's happening and realize that their recording is moving down the tunnel.

And I saw a bunch of people like frantically running from side to side.

Just checking it out?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Funny people in there.

They're shouting.

They're singing.

It's pretty cool.

Rafael: Some lady shouted with euphoria.

You had poets and beatboxers.

I'm mad and I can't take this anymore!

Nobody should be able to tell you what to say or not to say in the piece.

And as a funny sort of anecdote, when we were preparing for this piece, we had a meeting with NYPD, where they were saying, "Have you considered putting like a five-second delay "so that in case somebody said something that is unacceptable, we can just delete that?"

And then I did something that, as a Mexican-Canadian, I've always wanted to do.

I've seen it in the movies.

I said, "This is America, and it is your job to protect freedom of speech."

And it was really good because it was kind of like -- they all kind of said, "Yeah, okay," you know?

It worked, and we did not censor the piece at all.

[ Indistinct conversations ] Rafael: In the tunnel, you really wanna have the story, you know?

You wanna have -- A time dimension, in a way.

It's exactly a time dimension.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, I hate to be cheesy or corny, but, you know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and, you know, it's like a metaphor of you're just walking through, time is passing, then you disappear and you're gone.

It was.

[ Laughs ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ We're exhausted but happy.

It has to all go -- everything.

Everything needs to be gone in two hours.

Normally, a show like this gets installed in seven days.

Here we did it like in seven hours.

♪♪♪ I'm not.

This is new technology.

I got this prosthetic leg that is walking me.

Alright.

Thank you.

See you again.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rafael: If you really study art history, I mean, it's pretty hard to come up with something new or original.

Like, anyone who thinks that they are making something that's brand-new and that they stumbled upon this incredible discovery, they just haven't studied enough -- 'cause if you study, you realize these are just little progressions and variations of stuff that's already happened.

So, one of the things I say is that at my studio we specialize in bad ideas.

Creating a very large machine to walk into and visualize the vicious air and breathe it all together -- that's a really bad idea.

No one's done it because it's terrible.

[ Indistinct conversations, laughter ] So, if you go into this chamber, it decompresses.

All the clean air goes away.

And then you enter a main room, where you're breathing the recycled air.

Everybody who has been there before, their viruses, bacteria, pheromones.

The breath then comes into this system of bellows, very much inspired by organs of the 17th century, and finally they reach a system of valves, which make these 61 brown paper bags inflate and deflate 10,000 times a day, which is a normal respiratory frequency for an adult at rest.

When we first did this project in Istanbul and Madrid, after five or six months, it's really stinky inside.

It's just like absolutely gross.

In fact, we have warnings there against asphyxiation Because we only have 10 days of oxygen in here , we ask people to only be there for 10 minutes.

We have a warning against contagion because if you're there, there are no filters.

So you are sharing all of the viruses.

And then we have a warning against panic because to get out of the machine you have to go through the decompression chamber as well.

It's kind of a dark take on participation.

If you participate too much, you die.

I can't believe that you're making me do this.

[ Chuckles ] When we first installed this piece, I was in it because the air was clean, but -- [ Whirring ] That's the clean air leaving the chamber.

And now we're being let into the main organ.

[ Breathes deeply ] It's, uh, quite disgusting.

[ Chuckles ] Participation is something that's positive and something that's empowering and you feel like you can reconnect people to their cities and whatever.

And yet there's a problem with participation that -- It's part of that culture of reality TV, of social networking, where people feel like if they are actually liking a post on Facebook, they're actually doing something about it.

And of course, it's just an illusion, right?

And so to what degree isn't everything that I've been doing just a -- just one more diversion from the real problems that we have, right?

Like, to what degree am I not complicit with a culture of participation, which, in fact, cannot be divorced from the desire to control people?

The whole concept of "Megalodemocrat" -- like, you have "megalo," this obsession with the big, this large scale, this kind of insecurity, and then this whole word "Democrat."

I mean, democracy is based on this idea of voting and then you have a majority and then people move forward with that.

And yet, in art, that's exactly the opposite of what you want.

You don't want the majority.

It is usually in the -- in the margins and in the minorities and in the eccentrics and the weirdos that you get the interesting art.

[ Crowd chanting in Spanish ] Man: [ Speaking Spanish ] Rafael: The Mexican government was basically criminally involved in kidnapping 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Iguala, in Guerrero.

[ Gunshots ] [ Shouting in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ Rafael: What happened is basically the police murdered some of the kids and then they took 43 away.

According to the official story, these corrupt police officers got rid of the students by giving them to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.

The whole community believes that some of these kids may still be alive 'cause their remains have not been found.

And when I heard that the students were disappeared, I thought, "Well, look, we work routinely with military and police face-recognition systems."

♪♪♪ And so I decided to create a piece to look at any passer-by in front of a display.

It analyzes the distance between your eyes, your mouth, the shape of your jaw, and then it compares you to the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa.

And it finds which of those kids is closest to you in facial features.

The students are like 17- to 21-year-old education students, so it's -- it's just really grueling to look at them in this mirror.

♪♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] Once it picks out who looks most like you, it gives you a level of confidence.

"We are 17% sure that you are Martin Getsemany García."

And then it says, "Result -- student not found."

♪♪♪ I did this project for many reasons, right?

The first one is to generate empathy, this idea that these students are not just some kids far away that we can forget about.

They are us.

We have a fraternal connection to them.

We see them in ourself.

The search is interior.

The second is to create a sense of presence.

The whole project is viral.

It's free.

Anybody could download the software.

So far, we've had 45 museums and foundations and galleries all over the world who are showing this project.

♪♪♪ The third reason we did it was so that they could generate income for the families and for the orphans that they also left behind.

[ Speaking Spanish ] Rafael: Claro.

Sí?

[ Speaking Spanish ] [ Speaking Spanish ] Muchas gracias.

Mac Gregor: The piece creates relationships with the spectator in terms of empathy, but also in terms of the spectrum of the violence and the way race and gender and also class are involved in this violence.

[ Crowd chanting in Spanish ] it's really uncanny to see why these people are being disappeared and why the rest of society is not saying anything, you know?

And this is what is going on in the States now with the movement of Black Lives Matter.

I mean, there is an issue of representation, of which lives deserve to live and which lives do not deserve to live.

Woman: Don't shoot!

Crowd: Hands up!

Woman: Don't shoot!

Crowd: Hands up!

Woman: Don't shoot!

Crowd: Hands up!

Woman: Don't shoot!

Crowd: Hands up!

Woman: Don't shoot!

Crowd: Hands up!

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rafael: I'm interested in the violence of light, like the lights used in police interrogations or the beams shining down from helicopters looking for Mexicans at the border or the searchlights used for fascist spectacles.

"Articulated Intersect" is an installation that allows the public to control these lights from the ground up using haptic levers.

The piece has been shown in Montreal and Australia, but the original concept was to stage it across the U.S.-Mexico border.

With nationalism, racism, and violence on the rise, it's important to present a project like this across the border.

[ Latin rock music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Wow.

♪♪♪ This is original.

It says "Boundary of the United States, Treaty of 1848, re-established by treaties of 1848, 1889."

So, on this side, it's in English.

On the other side, it's in Spanish.

And there's been artists who do really interesting border art throughout, you know, the entire length of the border.

So, there's an artist, for instance, who made copies of these markers, and he actually put them in the correct locations of the old boundaries of Mexico.

Or, for instance, this artist here -- she paints the curtain steel in blue so that it fades into the blue sky and it makes it temporarily disappear.

There's artists like Rocío Boliver who set up this enormous swing on the Mexican side.

And then, when she swings, she moons the U.S. side.

So, as you're in the United States, you see the border, and then this butt just sort of comes in and out, swinging, oscillating like a pendulum.

Or you have Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Emily Hicks, who actually got married across the border, or Alejandro here in El Paso.

His project is to catapult a tumbleweed so that it doesn't get stuck in the wall and then it can go off on its way.

So, there's certainly a huge, rich tradition of artists who have used the border as an avenue or as a marker for an art installation.

[ Speaking Spanish ] Yeah.

Yeah.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ "Articulated Intersect" is a searchlight project that opens bidirectional light and sound connections between the two sides of the border.

So you're visualizing the voice passing through these searchlights.

Something like this that brings voices together would be so reflective of this reality that we have here.

And you have lines of people waiting out just to interact with this.

[ Speaking Spanish ] [ Mariachi music plays ] [ Singing in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ There's like this beautiful, like, song of returning to your country.

[ Humming ] Now I'm in Mexico.

This is the exact division line over the Rio Grande, which is now just an empty duct canal.

The actual marking is two things.

One is a metal plate that just sort of identifies this division, but also there's these speed bumps.

As cars go by, they get this haptic feedback.

The car itself has a little vibration.

It's like, "Oh, you've now gone "through a completely virtual line "that should not be here, "that is, in fact, just a result of Santana selling half of the country to the Americans."

So, no matter how many walls you can build, the building of bridges is appropriate.

The artwork is not really building the bridges, but it's just sort of emphasizing that those bridges exist so that, as people speak, their voice transforms the landscape between the two countries.

[ Latin hip-hop music plays ] ♪♪♪ [ Rapping in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ This says, "This is where dreams bounce."

♪♪♪ [ Chuckles ] It's so good, right?

And that one says, "We've had it up to here."

"Ya estamos hasta la madre."

[ Rapping continues ] It's so hardcore.

Toothbrush, boot, and sweaters.

A sock.

♪♪♪ Mm-hmm.

This is the Western Hemisphere's largest binational city.

So there is no city that happens at the border that is more integrated and is larger than Ciudad Juárez-El Paso.

So I want to create a new interface that is more about tuning.

So, if you have this, which is phallic and aggressive and predatorial, the idea of tuning -- there's something more democratic about this, right?

So, the interface might be a wheel.

Then, as you're moving this, the searchlight that you're controlling will just move and pan.

So, the pods are about how far away from each other?

So, each one is about 160 meters from one another.

Okay.

And then they should lock right there.

Oh, that's very nice.

And then they'll -- much bigger.

Okay.

So, somebody speaking now across the border using those lights?

Right.

Just for you to get a sense of what it would be like for someone standing here.

I think the lectern is a great idea because it already invites you to put, like, your notes if you're a musician, or something like that.

There is a certain violence to showing up and putting these searchlights that belong in Olympics and using them for a project that is about the people talking.

I don't think we should feel weird.

This is a platform that is giving, as you said, to the community.

It's something else as if we'd arrived with a bunch of, like, technology and then don't take them into account.

There's an audience, at least as I see it as American, in the broader U.S. of, like, this is a city that straddles the border, and they have a rich history and sense of communication.

And, like, we are gonna literally point our spotlight on that.

We're saying, "This is worth looking at."

Yeah.

And I think that when Trump sees this -- The question is how much Trump hates this.

And I think that he would a lot.

♪♪♪ Woman 1: I love you.

Woman 2: Viva México!

[ Speaking Spanish ] Woman 3: Your face, like summer lightning, gets caught in my voice, and I...

I started this out of a kind of utopian hope that we can reconnect people.

And then, over the process of so many different cities and so many different experiences, you realize you're not really making that change happen.

But at the end, you need to keep going.

You need to keep doing it because -- maybe not out of a utopian desire to change the world, but out of dissatisfaction, almost from an adversarial position where you see the state of affairs, something that you're very much against.

Now it's more the sense of -- of, you know, um... "Ya estamos a la madre," you know?

"We're up to here with how things are."

And I think that art can make a contribution.

Even if it's just a temporary, partial thing, I'm good with that.

I'm good with, just keep trying.

Okay.

Woman: Wow!

And then this is a shot from, you guys -- This is a shot from... Woman: It's like a painting!

...from El Paso.

I already asked Miguel if he can airbrush my hair so that you don't see... [ Laughter ] ...that I'm losing it.

I hate that.

He says, yeah, that he can fix that in post.

Thank God for post.

But the worst thing that you can do, for a movie called "Megalodemocrat" is to end the movie with a shot of the artist on the rooftop overlooking the city and then the drone goes off into the distance.

But that's exactly what we did.

[ Sensei Iceman's "En la Calle No Se Llora" plays ] [ Singing in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Rapping in Spanish ] ♪♪♪ [ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ [ People conversing in Spanish ] [ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ [ People conversing in Spanish ] So, I would like to ask you again for your advice.

Yeah, sure.

What should I do to learn Spanish at my age?

What is the best way to learn Spanish?

Watch Mexican movies.

[ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ [ People conversing in Spanish ] [ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ [ People conversing in Spanish ] [ Whooping, laughter ] [ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ Man: People do not understand that we have been one binational, bilingual, bicultural region over 100 years before the United States was even founded.

We are unique.

We are special.

And there is nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere like El Paso-Juárez.

[ Rapping continues ] Man: [ Speaking Spanish ] [ Rapping continues ] [ Speaking Spanish ] Be respectful towards one another.

After all, in the end, no one is better than anyone else.

We are all the same.

[ Rapping continues ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪