Description
Pulse Room is an interactive installation featuring one to three hundred clear incandescent light bulbs, 300 W each and hung from a cable at a height of three metres. The bulbs are uniformly distributed over the exhibition room, filling it completely. An interface placed on a side of the room has a sensor that detects the heart rate of participants. When someone holds the interface, a computer detects his or her pulse and immediately sets off the closest bulb to flash at the exact rhythm of his or her heart. The moment the interface is released all the lights turn off briefly and the flashing sequence advances by one position down the queue, to the next bulb in the grid. Each time someone touches the interface a heart pattern is recorded and this is sent to the first bulb in the grid, pushing ahead all the existing recordings. At any given time the installation shows the recordings from the most recent participants.

This work was inspired by Macario, directed by Roberto Gavaldón in 1960, a film where the protagonist suffers a hunger-induced hallucination in which every person is represented by a lit candle in a cave. Other references for this work include minimalist, machinic and serialist patterns in music (for example in scores by composers Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich and Glenn Branca) and the postulation of the theory of Cybernetics at the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City to explain the process of self-regulation of the heart.

Year of creation
2006.
Technique
Incandescent light bulbs, voltage controllers, heart rate sensors, computer and metal sculpture.
Dimensions
Variable dimensions.

Exhibitions
• Artefact Festival (curator: Pieter-Paul Mortier), Leuven, 2010
• "Hundred stories about love" (curator: Chieko Kitade), Museum of 21st Century Art, Kanazawa, 2009
• "Enter Action - Digital Art Now" (curated by Gitte Orskou, Anne Sophie Lossing, Pernille Taagaard Dinesen and Anne Sophie Witzke), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark, 2009.
• "In Memoriam Albert Hofmann" (curator: Michel Blancsubé), Jumex Collection, Laberinto de la Ciencia y Las Artes, San Luis Potosi, México, 2008.
• "Recorders" (curator: Sabine Himmelsbach), Edith Russ Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, Germany, 2008.
• "Intruders" (curator: Mélanie Boucher), Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City, Canada, 2008.
• "Emergentes" (curator: José Carlos Mariategui), shown at
Centro Fundación Telefónica, Lima, Peru, 2008.
Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2008.
The Laboral Art Center, Gijón, Spain, 2007.
• "Some Things Happen More Often Than All Of The Time" (curated by Príamo Lozada and Bárbara Perea), Mexican Pavilion – 52 Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2007.
• "Plataforma" (curator: Priamo Lozada), Fábrica La Constancia, Puebla 2006.

Photos
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Conroy Badger — programming
David Lemieux, Natalie Bouchard and Pierre Fournier — production support

Co-produced by the non-profit organization Puebla 2031, A.C. for the exhibition Plataforma 06, in Puebla, Mexico, where it was shown for the first time. Currently in the following collections: Karin Srb (Germany), Jonathon Carroll (NYC), Museum of Old and New Art (Australia), Jumex Collection (Mexico)