Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

On view August 31, 2022 through January 1, 2023 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's North Forest, Listening Forest is a new interactive exhibition featuring immersive installations by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. The exhibition, which is designed to be experienced at night, consists of eight site-specific audiovisual artworks installed along the North Forest trail at Crystal Bridges. In Listening Forest, Lozano-Hemmer creates artworks that respond to the visitor’s presence and participation, highlighting the unique physical characteristics of individuals while simultaneously creating connections between strangers and the landscape itself.

“Listening Forest promises to engage the audience in unique ways, whether it be by measuring their heart rate or body heat, analyzing their facial features, or sharing their own voice messages alongside curated oral histories,” Lozano-Hemmer said. “By combining art and technology, we are able to share our stories, create intimacy, and strengthen our sense of community. In Listening Forest, the public will be an integral part of the artwork.”

The exhibition includes eight installations: Recorded Assembly, Arkansas Text Stream, Pulse Forest, Thermal Drift, Remote Pulse, Embodied Light Beacons, Voice Forest, and Summon.

• Recorded Assembly merges the facial features of participants into a constantly changing portrait of previous forest visitors.
• Arkansas Text Stream consists of brief texts sourced from Northwest Arkansas community members animated as a slow stream of letters projected on the footpath that transform into phrases as the presence of people is detected.
• In Pulse Forest, visitors can add their heartbeat to an array of 3,000 lightbulbs, each glimmering to the pulse of a different participant from the past.
• Thermal Drift features a thermal camera that registers a visitor’s heat signature and visualizes that energy as particles floating into the surrounding space.
• Remote Pulse consists of two identical pulse-sensing stations that connect strangers and beams of light across the forest.
• Embodied Light Beacons allows guests to control giant, 20-foot-tall stick figures made of light.
• In Voice Forest, guests can leave a voice recording that will join a chorus of voices left by previous forest visitors.
• In Summon, microphones will pick up sounds from visitors on a bridge and translate them into an array of light in the ravine below.

Learn more at (opens in a new window) Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's website.