Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s “Standards and Double Standards” installation consists of 4 surveillance cameras, a tracking system and fifty fastened belts suspended from servo motors on the ceiling.
Controlled by a computerized tracking system, the belts rotate to follow the public, turning their buckles slowly to face people. When several visitors are in the room their presence creates chaotic patterns of interference. Non-linear behaviours emerge such as turbulence, eddies and relatively quiet regions.
With this piece, the artist wants to visualize complex dynamics, turning a condition of pure surveillance into an unpredictable connective system. “Standards and Double Standards” creates an “absent crowd” using a fetish of paternal authority: the belt.