Pulse Agglomerate Performance
Monday, 15 June 2026, 19:00–20:00. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and IZOLYATSIA Foundation (Kyiv) present the performance Pulse Agglomerate at Messeplatz in Basel — a biometric memorial that moves in procession through the city.
Pulse Agglomerate is a biometric memorial performance featuring one hundred lightbulbs, each glimmering to the recorded heartbeat of a resident of Donetsk, Ukraine — originally captured in 2013 at IZOLYATSIA cultural centre, now carried by Ukrainian artist Maria Kulikovska as a processional memorial at Art Basel.
These heartbeats were originally captured in 2013 inside Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room installation at the IZOLYATSIA cultural centre in Donetsk. Visitors placed their hands on cylindrical sensors, and their pulse was recorded, lighting the nearest bulb at the exact rhythm of their heartbeat. Each new recording pushed the previous ones along the grid, creating a living, shifting archive of human presence.
In 2014, shortly before the Russian invasion of the Donetsk region — and the subsequent transformation of the centre into a torture camp — the computer storing these recordings was sent back to the artist. Today, these one hundred heartbeats reappear as a processional memorial, carried by Ukrainian artist Maria Kulikovska.
To add your own heartbeat, place your hand approximately 15 cm beneath the sensor and wait a few seconds. You will see and hear your pulse join the array. Each new recording replaces the oldest one, evoking mourning while affirming continuity, solidarity, and resilience in the face of ongoing war.
This performance is presented by the IZOLYATSIA Foundation (Kyiv), in collaboration with Atelier Lozano-Hemmer (Montréal), Max Estrella Gallery (Madrid), and bitforms gallery (New York), on the occasion of Art Basel's Zero 10 digital art exhibition.
About the Artists
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967, Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian media artist known for large-scale interactive installations at the intersection of architecture, performance, and technology. His "anti-monuments" require audience participation — often collecting biometric data such as fingerprints or heartbeats — to create dynamic collective representations. The first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale (2007), he has received two BAFTA Awards for Interactive Art, a Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica, and the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. His work is held in the collections of MoMA, Tate, and SFMOMA.
Maria Kulikovska (b. 1988, Kerch, Crimea) is a Ukrainian multimedia and performance artist, architect, researcher, and lecturer who has been forced to flee her home twice — first from Crimea in 2014 after Russia's annexation, and again from Kyiv in March 2022 following the full-scale invasion. Her work explores the vulnerability of the body in the face of war, power, and borders, creating space for feminist and queer discourses. In 2012 in Donetsk, she created Homo Bulla for IZOLYATSIA Foundation — three translucent soap sculptures cast from her own body, left outdoors to gradually dissolve into the soil, becoming one of IZOLYATSIA's most recognizable symbols. She founded Flowers of Democracy (2015), co-founded the School of Political Performance (2017), and initiated GARAGE33 in Kyiv (2019). Her work has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery (London), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), Albertina Modern (Vienna), and Ludvig Museum (Budapest).