663,044,400 – BREATH SCULPTURE
Breathing-based media installation, 2022

We live in a time of virtual ubiquity: permanent accessibility and remote work, hypercommunication and endless feeds. All this has a fundamental influence on our humanity. Our own body fades into the background as a result of being virtually everywhere.

Over the course of a lifetime, a person takes an average of 663,044,400 breaths. Breathing is the most existential bodily function. It regulates our circulation and can position us in the here and now.

In the installation, breathing is utilised as a means of mindful media interaction to explore a data sculpture, one on one, without a smartphone.

The technical setup was created jointly with Norman Wassmuth and Julian Hespenheide: A thermal imaging camera tracks the visitors' breathing underneath FFP2 masks and then displays it in the form of light onto the sculpture.

The structure of the sculpture that becomes visible as a result was milled with a CNC machine. It is based on data from the Chicxulub crater on the coast of Yucatán, Mexico. This crater is considered the place where our species' beginning on earth was triggered. It invites us to reflect on our own hereness. And our daily interaction with technology.

Our breathing can locate us in the here and now; it is the existential connection to ourselves and to our environment. As a non-digital interaction, the work confronts the visitors with the significance of conscious experiences of hereness in the midst of virtual omnipresence.

So there are approximately 663,044,400 breaths in which we can consciously decide to be here, here on this earth.

Seek Thermal MOSAIC Core, DPB Pixel Router and LED Spotlight by Schnick Schnack Systems, CNC-milled hard foam, acrylic varnish

Credits
Creative Direction: Hojin Kang
Project Management, Concept Assistance: Claudia Menz
Interaction Design, Technical Assistance: Julian Hespenheide
Data Design, Concept and Technical Assistance: Norman Wassmuth
Product Design Assistance: Aljosha Schäck
CNC milling: New Wave Kreativmanufaktur, Trick-Reich
3D Printing: Trick-Reich
Video: Pesheng Ali

Curation: Katharina Ritter, M.A.
Research Assistant: Katja Pilisi, M.A.
Technical Director: Jörg Schallmo
Construction team: Khrystyna Rymsha, Christian Richert
Office: Lin Mara Krämer
Internship: Hannah Liliane Markus, Chloë Gabbar, Mado Nullans
Graphic Design: MM, M

Photos by Oliver Dietze, Marius Heimburger

Thanks to: Till Wilhelm, Fabian Mansmann, Gye-soon Kang,
Hwang-yong Kang, Erik Freydank, Schnickschnack Systems,
Seek Thermal Inc., Jose Batista-Rodriguez (Univ. A. Coahuila),
Marco A. Perez-Flores (CICESE), Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi (UNAM),
Dustin Coutts

With kind support from ME Saar

663,044,400 – BREATH SCULPTURE
Breathing-based media installation, 2022

We live in a time of virtual ubiquity: permanent accessibility and remote work, hypercommunication and endless feeds. All this has a fundamental influence on our humanity. Our own body fades into the background as a result of being virtually everywhere.

Over the course of a lifetime, a person takes an average of 663,044,400 breaths. Breathing is the most existential bodily function. It regulates our circulation and can position us in the here and now.

In the installation, breathing is utilised as a means of mindful media interaction to explore a data sculpture, one on one, without a smartphone.

The technical setup was created jointly with Norman Wassmuth and Julian Hespenheide: A thermal imaging camera tracks the visitors' breathing underneath FFP2 masks and then displays it in the form of light onto the sculpture.

The structure of the sculpture that becomes visible as a result was milled with a CNC machine. It is based on data from the Chicxulub crater on the coast of Yucatán, Mexico. This crater is considered the place where our species' beginning on earth was triggered. It invites us to reflect on our own hereness. And our daily interaction with technology.

Our breathing can locate us in the here and now; it is the existential connection to ourselves and to our environment. As a non-digital interaction, the work confronts the visitors with the significance of conscious experiences of hereness in the midst of virtual omnipresence.

So there are approximately 663,044,400 breaths in which we can consciously decide to be here, here on this earth.

Seek Thermal MOSAIC Core, DPB Pixel Router and LED Spotlight by Schnick Schnack Systems, CNC-milled hard foam, acrylic varnish

Credits
Creative Direction: Hojin Kang
Project Management, Concept Assistance: Claudia Menz
Interaction Design, Technical Assistance: Julian Hespenheide
Data Design, Concept and Technical Assistance: Norman Wassmuth
Product Design Assistance: Aljosha Schäck
CNC milling: New Wave Kreativmanufaktur, Trick-Reich
3D Printing: Trick-Reich
Video: Pesheng Ali

Curation: Katharina Ritter, M.A.
Research Assistant: Katja Pilisi, M.A.
Technical Director: Jörg Schallmo
Construction team: Khrystyna Rymsha, Christian Richert
Office: Lin Mara Krämer
Internship: Hannah Liliane Markus, Chloë Gabbar, Mado Nullans
Graphic Design: MM, M

Photos by Oliver Dietze, Marius Heimburger

Thanks to: Till Wilhelm, Fabian Mansmann, Gye-soon Kang,
Hwang-yong Kang, Erik Freydank, Schnickschnack Systems,
Seek Thermal Inc., Jose Batista-Rodriguez (Univ. A. Coahuila),
Marco A. Perez-Flores (CICESE), Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi (UNAM),
Dustin Coutts

With kind support from ME Saar