Information
Ulrike Gabriel >
»Breath«, 1991
Co-Workers & Funding:
DASA Helicopterlab OttobrunnStädelschule InM Frankfurt
Technology
Installation Requirements / Space
A participant stands in front of a big screen wearing a sensor belt around the waist. The sensor detects amplitude of lung/abdominal muscles in breathing, and its data is fed to a computer. In the beginning, regularly grid-shaped CG polygons, segmented in small pieces, are projected on the screen. As the data of the amplitude of breathing are sent in, parts of the cellular texture start to develop realtime. Super low sound accompanies the development. The data are recorded with the mean value (history) between the previous and the following movements. When breathing is at a stable pitch, polygons are transformed drastically. On the other hand, when stability is gone and pitches swing, polygons settle down as if they were going back to the beginning stage. Looking at his visualized breathing, the participant finds it difficult to continue to breath calmly. Gabriel presents that automatic physical functions such as breathing are actually automaton controlling us. She also points out that a mechanical autonomous environment contradicts human consciousness. From that viewpoint, she regards human body as an accumulation of complex data, and tries to interface human body with computer in a paradoxical association.
Descriptions & Essays
Human breathing is a complicated mechanism that can be influenced so that people changes their peed of breathing.
Breath is a virtual space in which the spectator experiences in a cybernetic world presenting images how breath mechanism can be linked with time.
The pictures system consists in an hyperplane composed of 400 polygons that can move. A sensorial belt links the person and the hyperplane. Frequence and volume from breathing make polygons oscillating .
Literature
Exhibitions & Events
1992
Conferences: