Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Levels of Nothingness at the Guggenheim, Summary

I really enjoyed the light show it. There were a seres of quotes from artists and authors such as Kadinsky regarding the perception of color. There was a circle of colored micro-controlled stage light’s that reacted to Isabella Rossellini’s reading of the quotes. They responded it different ways depending on the topic such as changing color, speeding up, slowing down, or moving in different directions. There was a spot light on Isabella that changed color on the topic as well. After her monolog Rapheal hosted as the audience read quotes. The user would chose a topic and a random quote would appear. The lights would react as the did to Isabella. I don’t think this was intended as part of the art work, but as the lights lifted there was a fixed camera on the seats. It read the color and the out put was a matrix of the read color. The camera would read the color and the corresponding pixel, the out put was a rectangle with the name of the “commercial color.” Color names such as those that appear on crayons and paint buckets in Home Depot (ie: apple red, sand, sky blue, ext). My interpretation is that the work is about the an individuals perception of color and how it relates to their understanding of reality.

It was boring :) I found the quotes provocative but i think i would’ve benefitted more from it being a more personal experience then hearing Isabelle read them. She was great, but I don’t feel like a professional actress was necessary. I felt a like too disconnected to what was intended to be interactive. I felt like I was watching an adult episode of sesame street about color feature Isabelle Rossellini. I think Rapheal preferred it to be entirely interactive just as his previous work such as Pulse Park.

Here is a video. I apologize for the quality(iPhone), but I’m sure video wasn’t allowed. I didn’t bother to find out if I couldn’t. Yes, I was that guy.