Below The Belt is an interactive installation exploring the tensions between competitive contact sports and the inward focus of breathing practices that support them. Using boxing props embedded with biometric sensors, each 'competitor's' breath is measured according to speed and depth differentials. Breathing performance is categorised drawing inspiration from boxing weight categories and proclaimed with the flourish of a prizefight.
Participants strap on protective headgear and a champion title-boxing belt. Head phones implanted in the headgear offer coaching on how to be a winner in deep belly breathing. Competitors have an allocated 180 seconds to slow down their breath and increase the rise and fall of their abdominal as they breath.
A stretch sensor in the belt relays the pace of breathing and degree of abdominal movement to an Arduino microprocessor. Max/MSP and Jitter calculations determine an average value from these readings and from this categorise the competitor’s breathing performance. An audiovisual display announces this ranking with all the fanfare of a championship bout.
Special thanks to George Poonkhin Khut for his generous help with the sensors used in this project.
The images above were taken by Pia Van Gelder at the Dorkbot Syd Group Show 2011 - an exhibition of work by people doing strange things with electricity.
