Breathing Room 2, Amherst MA, Spring 2010
The walls and floors of the space were covered in newspaper articles. There were two chairs facing each other. One chair was empty for the viewer to sit in, and was surrounded by small television monitors. In the other was a large mirror within which the viewer could see themselves surrounded by the television monitors. Each screen silently played a different video clip that was intended to represent everything from the most wonderful to the most horrible on goings in the world right now. These ranged from an elderly couple tenderly dancing together, a baby peacefully resting, a person mundanely eating a sandwich, to a violent physical assault, and soldiers infiltrating an enemy base. A recording of breathing was played in the background. The intention was to allow the viewer to see themselves sitting, existing, and breathing within all these other events happening simultaneously around them. The sound of the breath, as a core aspect of our shared aliveness, was intended to evoke the connectivity between all of these different aspects of our world and lives, pointing towards the life force that animates us.
The walls and floors of the space were covered in newspaper articles. There were two chairs facing each other. One chair was empty for the viewer to sit in, and was surrounded by small television monitors. In the other was a large mirror within which the viewer could see themselves surrounded by the television monitors. Each screen silently played a different video clip that was intended to represent everything from the most wonderful to the most horrible on goings in the world right now. These ranged from an elderly couple tenderly dancing together, a baby peacefully resting, a person mundanely eating a sandwich, to a violent physical assault, and soldiers infiltrating an enemy base. A recording of breathing was played in the background. The intention was to allow the viewer to see themselves sitting, existing, and breathing within all these other events happening simultaneously around them. The sound of the breath, as a core aspect of our shared aliveness, was intended to evoke the connectivity between all of these different aspects of our world and lives, pointing towards the life force that animates us.