Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was born in Mexico City in 1967. In 1989 he received a degree in Physical Chemistry from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada.

He is a Media artist who creates platforms for public participation using technologies such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, media walls, and telematic networks. He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale with an exhibition at Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has also shown at Biennials in Cuenca, Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne NGV, Moscow, New Orleans, New York ICP, Seoul, Seville, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Wuzhen.

Collections holding his work include MoMA and Guggenheim in New York, TATE in London, the 21C Museum in Kanazawa, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, SFMOMA in San Francisco, and many others.

He has received two BAFTA British Academy Awards for Interactive Art in London, "Artist of the year" Rave Award from Wired Magazine, a Rockefeller fellowship, among many other awards.

He has lectured at Goldsmiths College, the Bartlett School, Princeton, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Cooper Union, USC, MIT MediaLab, Guggenheim Museum, LA MOCA, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Cornell, UPenn, SCAD, Danish Architecture Center, CCA in Montreal, ICA in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago.