“Breath – An Installation” presented by Cornell and Cornell

Mystery attracts imagination. Humans sense the immensity of natural forces, envisioning a shaping of the world beyond what can be seen. The video installation Breath is based on the immense space of ocean and air, and the invisible transfer of oxygen into the atmosphere from the unseen action of immeasurable planktonic organisms, an environmental phenomenon that sustains all of human life, and one which is threatened by the warming of the atmosphere and changing ocean chemistry.
This paper outlines the shape of the installation Breath, a work in two-channel video (one fixed-media channel and one interactive) with immersive sound and infrared interactivity. The paper will describe its modus operandi, the research and environmental consequences propelling the work, its imagistic and sonic references, and its interactivity that implicates human interference in vast environmental and sustaining movements.