SPIRITUS

“And the breath departed... and she gave up the ghost.”

The breathing booth catches your breath and spirit for transmutation and melding with others, penetrating the darkness with the sounds of Spiritus. It understands breath beyond the intensely personal expression we may, or may not, be familiar with – beyond the materiality of the gaseous exchange we are all implicit in.

In common with many languages and belief systems, Spiritus draws no distinction between breath and that incorporeal, ubiquitous energy called spirit. The booth captures this breathy, bodily broadcast and amplifies it, underscoring its affecting power. Here breath and spirit are the same, the energy that sustains and permeates, linking us to everyone and everything. Spiritus provokes the emotions and stirs the breath – acknowledging they are constantly mediating our bodily and social domains.

Spiritus 2011 / MaxMSP, localiser sound dome, shotgun microphone, laptop, headphones

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Aengus Martin, Ben Carey and Kirsty Beilharz for their help with this work.

This work was shown as part of the Reverse=bread.from(crumbs) at the ATVP, Newtown.