Artist Comparison Final Paper

There are a lot of great and very unique digital media artists in the world. For this paper, I will be doing a comparison between Maurice Benayoun and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Both are still-living, electronic art artists that we have not covered in class. I discovered them from within the links provided to us for this assignment, which then sent me on a path of thorough research and exploration to learn more about each of these amazing artists.

Maurice Benayoun

Starting with Maurice Benayoun as a person, I learned that he as also been known under the alias of MoBen. He was born on March 29th, 1957, making him 58 years old at the time of this writing. He was born in Mascara, Algeria, and moved to France a year later.

When it comes to education, Benayoun graduated in Fine Arts from Pantheon-Sorbonne University, also known as Paris 1, which is a public research university of Paris, France. The university is known for its focuses on law, political science, social sciences, economics, logic, finance, and in Benayoun's case, the humanities. He graduated in the 1980s, but later submitted a doctorate thesis to the same Paris 1 university entitled Artistic Intentions at Work, Hypothesis for Committing Art, from which he submitted through his blog known as The Dump. This blog was made up of a number of Benayoun's incomplete art projects. The final thesis was so well received that Benayoun received his Phd and was awarded the highest distinction in the French academic system known as "mention très honorable."

For a large portion of his life, Benayoun worked at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University as an assistant professor. He did this from 1984 to 2010, a total of 26 years. While at the university, Benayoun co-founded and was the art director of the CiTu Research Center, or the Création Interactive Transdisciplinaire Universitaire, in partnership with Paris 8 University. The mission of CiTu is to provide research and creation in emerging forms of art, like those found in digital media. In 2010, after his time at Paris 1, Benayoun moved on become an associate professor at Paris 8 university. It was at this point in his life that he founded H2H Lab (also known as the Human to Human Lab), which is a collection of public and private labs that envisions art as an advanced form of human mediations. He still runs this lab today, and in 2002, Benayoun was upgraded to full professor at the City University of Hong Kong's School of Creative Media.

Beyond being a teacher and a practitioner of the arts, Benayoun is also credited as being a theorist. He is known to have coined the term Critical Fusion, or the "fusion of fiction and reality to decipher the world," and Extended Relativity, which is a physics model used to interpret and understand the process of subjective data mining and urban navigation.

As an artist, Maurice Benayoun has created a number of unique and very recognizable works since the early 1990s'. Benayoun's Wikipedia page lists about 25 known works, while Benayoun's official website lists 218 works. Some of his most well-known titles include World Skin, a photo safari in the Land of War (1997), Is God Flat? (1994), and Is the Devil Curved? (1995). He also has a number of more recent art pieces, like Emotion Winds (2014), E-SCAPE TODAY! (2012), and Occupy Wall Screens (2012). Each of these installations utilize technology in some form or another. Benayoun's signature style traditionally includes virtual reality, projections, and/or some sort of interactivity with the viewer. Some of his works also are a reflection of the time it was created, like the Occupy Wall Screens (2012) installation, which connected to the Occupy Wall Street movement happening at the time in the United States.

Maurice Benayoun's art has gained him a significant number of awards and recognitions. At the time of this assignment, Benayoun has 27 awards credited to him on his Wikipedia page, including the Golden Nica first prize award from the Ars Electronica Festival in 1998 for World Skin (1998). Further, Benayoun lists over 43 awards and selections on his official website.

Benayoun is still creating what he has labeled as Open Media Art, or basically new media art.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

As an artist to compare to, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is no slouch. Born ten and a half years later than Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer came into this world on November 17th, 1967 half way around the world from Benayoun in Mexico City, Mexico. Unlike Benayoun, or MoBen, Lozano-Hemmer does not have an alias that he has been known to use. Also unlike Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer spent more of his youth in his hometown, and later moved to Canada in 1985 for additional schooling.

Similar to Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer is a college graduate. However, in contrast to Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer did not get his degree in the arts. Rather, he graduated with a Bachelor in Science and Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montreal. Thus far, Lozano-Hammer has not returned to the university or applied for his Phd, as Benayoun did later in his career.

Despite the seemingly unrelated area of study in school, Lozano-Hemmer's interest in science and chemistry heavily influenced his art later in life. While Benayoun seemed to be drawn to art from the beginning, it appears as though Lozano-Hemmer initially pursued other avenues for a career, but ultimately succeeded to art as he later found that to be his ultimate passion.

Further, not much has been reported about Benayoun's family influences. On the other hand, Lozano-Hemmer's parents are known to be nightclub owners in Mexico City. Growing up around creative people, Lozano-Hemmer was consistently influenced by the arts, and after publishing various research in Chemistry journals in Montreal, he shifted his focus into becoming a new media artist.

Unlike Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer is not and has never been a professor at any university. After graduating, most of what is reported about Lozano-Hemmer has been about his art, and not so much about his scholarly pursuits. There are also no organizations or labs credited to Lozano-Hemmer's name, like Benayoun has with CiTu and H2H Labs. Additionally, Lozano-Hemmer is not known to be a theorist or to have coined any terms related to his work.

As an artist, Lozano-Hemmer has many similarities to Benayoun. For example, many of his works also utilize technology and new media. Similar to Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer is known to use projectors and interactive digital installations. He is also known for his urban installations, which can be seen by hundreds and are often installed in various cities around the world. Some of Lozano-Hemmer's works include Vectorial Elevation (2010), 33 Questions per Minute (2001), and Subtitled Public (2005). Just like Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer also has a lot of more recent art projects, like Level of Confidence (2015), Pulse Corniche (2015), and Pan-Anthem (2014). While Lozano-Hemmer appears less interested in social movements than Benayoun, he still creates noteworthy art that is a reflection of the times. An example of this is Lozano-Hemmer's Please Empty Your Pockets (2010), a reflection of society's security measures, and There Is No Business Like No Business (2009), which is a clever twist on the "No Business Like Show Business" motto reworded for the recession happening at the time.

While Benayoun has 25 awards listed on his Wikipedia page, Lozano-Hemmer's Wikipedia page lists 34 awards. Lozano-Hemmer's official website lists a few additional awards, coming in with a total of 36 compared to Benayoun's 43. Further, just like Benayoun, Lozano-Hemmer has been award the Golden Nica first prize award from the Ars Electronica Festival as well, two years later than Benayoun in 2000.

Just like Maurice Benayoun, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is still an electronic artist and practices in the field of new media.

Work Comparison

Since both Lozano-Hemmer and Benayoun are recipients of the Ars Electronica Festival Golden Nica first prize award, it makes sense to compare and contrast the work that they submitted for these awards.

For Benayoun, the Golden Nica was awarded to to him for his piece World Skin (1997), which he received in 1998. For Lozano-Hemmer, the award was granted to him for his work Vectorial Elevation (1999), in 2000.

The largest difference between these two works is their execution. World Skin (1997) is an immersive virtual reality installation, in which the viewer can enter a room that has a number of projectors that simulate a moving battlefield. The screens surround the viewer with imagery of tanks, fallen soldiers, and debris. It incorporates sound, like gunshots, explosions, and other war-related sounds. The participant can interact with the installation by walking through the war-torn landscape, full of destruction. Further, when the spectator takes a photo in this room of something in the projection, the subject of the picture disappears, leaving simply an empty shape of where the subject used to be.

Alternative, Lozano-Hemmer's Vectorial Elevation (1999) is a urban installation that utilizes 18 robotic searchlights positioned around Mexico City's Zócalo Square. Each light has the ability to move, which can be seen as far as 15 kilometers away. Unlike Benayoun's work, Vectorial Elevation (1999) is not meant to be about war. Instead, it is more about illuminated beauty and robotics. Similar to Benayoun's work, however, Lozano-Hemmer's piece is interactive. Instead of requiring the spectators to be in a room to interact with the art, Vectorial Elevation (1999) allowed participants to control the lights using a specially designed website via the Internet. Specifically, users would sign in to alzado.net, which would then give them the ability to design the light sculptures in any way they would like. Taking it even further, the website would then take a snapshot of the lights when they are in position, which would create a unique page specifically for that user. This allowed users to use the art to send uncensored messages, like love poems, football scores, and reportedly 27 marriage proposals.

In that sense, both Lozano-Hemmer and Benayoun's works are interactive by nature. They also involve projections (either through projectors or spotlights), and cameras. Benayoun uses screens to project on, while Lozano-Hemmer used the clouds and sky to project on. Both works had the ability to leave a lasting impression on those that used it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I found both of these artists to be extremely intriguing and inspiring. I love their use of technology, and varying usage of the Internet and new media to craft their art. In the new digital frontier, I see enormous opportunity in this field, and it is great to see artists exploring this field for years to come.