Thermal Drift

Thermal cameras have many uses. They are deployed for surveillance and recently helped detect fevers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, however, puts them into the service of interactive art.

Thermal Drift shows heat generated by bodies positioned in front of its thermal camera as mesmerizing flowing particles-red, orange, and yellow for warmer temperatures and blue for cooler ones. These colored particles also reveal how body heat affects the surrounding air and how the temperature of one body may affect another nearby. This merger of technology and art yields one-of-a-kind, in-the-moment portraits.