Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s always been a favourite of mine. This new work is rather more modest in scale than some of his pieces, Vectorial Elevation for example. I like how this piece adopts the tape measure usually used for distance as a way of measuring time, clearly alluding to the idea of a time line. Timelines though are usually seen horizontally whereas these are vertical. It looks like the longest tape measures are where people have stood for the longest, so I guess in that sense they also measure how the audience moves through the space.
On a technical level it looks like this is controlled by a Kinect mounted on the ceiling. I’m guessing that the software its connected to measures where people are in the room and how long for then sends a signal to a hidden controller somewhere which activates the motors. A really nice use of the Kinect to control something more physical than a projection.
