Rafael Lozano-Hemmer & José Luis de Vicente In Conversation

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. In 1989 he received a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. Media artist working at the intersection of architecture and performance art. He creates platforms for public participation using technologies such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, media walls, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his light and shadow works are "antimonuments for alien agency". He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale with an exhibition at Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has also shown at Biennials in Cuenca, Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne NGV, Moscow, New Orleans, New York ICP, Seoul, Seville, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Wuzhen.

Jose Luis de Vicente is a curator and cultural researcher. Since 2023 he is the director of DHUB, Barcelona's Design Museum. His work investigates the impacts of technological and cultural innovation through artifacts, systems and narratives. His projects create contexts for collaboration  between artists, designers, architects, technologists, scientists and communities.

He was founder and Artistic Director of Sónar+D, the arts  program of the acclaimed Sónar Festival in Barcelona. He has been co-founder of Model, the Barcelona Architectures Festival, and curator of public arts and light festival LlumBCN. He was curator of FutureEverything Festival (Manchester) and led the Visualizar programme on Data Culture at Medialab Prado (Madrid). His exhibitions include the international touring show Big Bang Data, After the End of the World (CCCB Barcelona), Radical Curiosity: in the Buckminster Fuller Orbit (Espacio Fundación Telefónica / ArtScience Museum Singapore), and the permanent installation Mirador Torre Glories in Barcelona.