Displaced Emperors
Relational Architecture 2
Displaced Emperors was an installation that used an "architact" interface to transform the Habsburg Castle in Linz, Austria. Wireless 3D sensors calculated where participants pointed to on the façade and a large animated projection of a hand was shown at that location. As people on the street "caressed" the building, they could reveal the interiors of the Habsburg residence in Mexico City, Castillo de Chapultepec. In addition, for ten schillings, people could press the "Moctezuma button" and trigger a temporary post-colonial override consisting of a huge image of the Aztec head-dress that is kept at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna, followed by a parade of images of jewels from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, set to music by Toña la Negra.
Displaced Emperors departs from the supposition that cultural property is cultural poverty. As an architectural mise-en-abîme, the project supports the idea of perpetration of culture instead of calls for its vampiric preservation.
General info
Credits
- Will Bauer - programming, audio and hardware
- Susie Ramsay, Daniel Rivera and Patricia Maier - production support
Bibliography
"Rafael Lozano-Hemmer", Rue Descartes, Vol. 57, Paris, France, July 2007 (english). Text of 2 pages. (Magazine)
- "Pseudomatismos, de Rafael Lozano-Hemmer muestra la luz en el arte", Zona Franca, Guanajuato, México, October 30th 2015 (español). Text of 3 pages. (Website)
- "Moi et ma circonstance", Musée des Beaux Arts de Montéal, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1999 (english and français). Text of 9 pages. (Book)
- Alm, David, Cities of light - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s architectural revisions, RES, vol. 4, no. 3, May / June, 2001 (english). Text of 1 page. (Magazine)
- Druckrey, Timothy, Relational Architecture: the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Debates & Credits. Media / Art / Public Domain, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2003 (english and deutsch). Text of 4 pages. (Book)
- Fernández, Maria, Illuminating Embodiement: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Relational Architectures, Architectural Design vol. 77, no. 4, July/august, London, United Kingdom, July 2007 (english). Text of 10 pages. (Magazine)
Fernández, María, "Transnational culture at the End of the Millennium.", Cosmopolitanism in Mexican Visual Culture, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, United States, 2014 (english). Text of 28 pages. (Book)
Flores, Tatiana, "The Historical (Self-) Conciousness", ArtNexus, Vol.7, No.71, Madrid, Spain, May 2010 (english). Text of 5 pages. (Magazine)
- Massumi, Brian, Strange Horizon: Buildings, Biograms and The Body Topologic, Architectural Design, London, United Kingdom, 1999 (english). Text of 8 pages. (Magazine)
- Ozaki, Tetsuya, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, GEO Japan, vol. 6, no. 53, June 1998 (japanese). Text of 4 pages. (Magazine)
- Paul, Christiane, Digital Art, London, United Kingdom, 2003 (english). Text of 1 page. (Book)
- Ranzenbacher, Heimo, Metaphors of Participation, Takeover ‒ who's doing the art of tomorrow. ARS Electronica 2001, Vienna, Austria, 2001 (english). Text of 5 pages. (Book)
- Schnabel, Jeff, "Transforming the Public Realm with Projected Light", Arcade Magazine, Seattle, Washington, United States, December 20th 2012 (english). Text of 4 pages. (Magazine)
- Stocker, Gerfried and Schöpf, Christine, Relational Architecture no2 – Displaced Emperors, Flesh Factor ‒ informationsmaschine mensch, Vienna, Austria, 1997 (english and deutsch). Text of 3 pages. (Book)
Walder, Paul, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: fragmentos de un código fuente. Rafael Lozano Hemmer: fragments of a source code., Art.es, Spain, 2012 (english and español). Text of 34 pages. (Magazine)
- Wilson, Stephen, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Information Arts ‒ Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2002 (english). Text of 4 pages. (Book)