Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Border Tuner

As a large-scale, participatory installation, Lozano-Hemmer's "bridges of light" create a channel of communication beyond the limits of the nation-stateComposed of powerful "bridges" of searchlights and sound across the US–Mexico border, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's (born 1967) work Border Tuner forges a platform for local dialogue between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, at a time of fraught border rhetoric, militarized surveillance and nationalist violence. In opposition to the modes of control and the regulation of bodies profusely developed along the border line, Lozano-Hemmer proposed a momentary alternative. To this extent, it is a critically important artistic work that strove to cultivate relations beyond the limits and perpetual violence of the nation-state. The 12 essays comprising this bilingual English/Spanish record—written by a range of historians, theorists, curators, artists and cultural workers—enter into convivial exchange with the voices and language, bodies and performances of those who activated the work.