Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Surface Tension

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, views of Surface Tension, plasma, LCD or rear-projection display, computerized surveillance system, variable dimensions, 1992-2004. Concept and direction by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer; programming by Conroy Badger; model by Bruce Ramsay; production assistance by Will Bauer, Susie Ramsay and Tara DeSimone.

© Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Surface Tension (see also Color Plate B No. 2) is an interactive installation in which a large human eye follows—with Orwellian precision—viewers in the exhibition space. The piece was originally developed in 1992 in Madrid as a set design for the theater group Transition State Theory. The predatory nature of the piece was meant to parallel the panoptic paradigm that had just been inaugurated by George H.W. Bush with the use of smart bombs in the first Gulf War. I reconstructed the project in 2004 as an interactive installation to coincide with George W. Bush's new war in the Gulf and the increased surveillance of his own people.