Take a deep breath and... (day 2)

first breath
breathe easy
take my breath away
breathless
hold your breath
don't hold your breath
the breath of life
hard breathing
bad breath
shallow breath
just breathe
breathe deeply
foul breath
last breath

I'm working on a research project called Breath I/O along with Leila Sujir, Joy James, and Ron Burnett. We feel very lucky to have this project funded by SSHRC for three years through their research/creation program (on hold for the moment). It is luxury...working with a team of researchers and students (Miles Thorogood, and Thea Jones are research assistants) for an extended period of time like this.

The form of the project is a virtual stereoscopic video sculpture with lungs as its subject. The lungs (single, multiple - a chorus of lungs) are in a constant exchange with the environment which is filled with sound, image and video.

The choice of not breathing cannot be sustained. We breathe and know something about where we are. We breathe and others know something about how we are. This idea of being subject to and indebted to the environment is what is compelling to me. In relation to the environment of sound, image and video (perhaps text?) I would like to know what it is to breathe image and sound. I read recently that the CEO of netflix thinks that web 3.0 will be a full video web. Like watching TV all over again but this time...with feeling? I don't know. I'm assuming he means that it will be democratic this time. That it will be the whole world cooking up a media storm for a public banquet of (biblical?) proportions. Or maybe more of a potluck...more like YouTube feels like now but less clicking. Who knows. My lungs will know if they are breathing the foul air of fast food.

The investigation has just started. We have a prototype but it's not quite right. We'll keep working at it, creating lungs that breathe naturally, convincingly. We'll come up with ways of seeing video mingling in the environment and finding its way into the lungs which take and give back. We'll find ways for people to converse with the virtual chorus with their hands and voices.