Breathing

2020
Youyang Hu, Chiaochi Chou

plants, metal, computer, electronic device, gas tanks
 

Signals Accompanying the Right to Breathe - Humankind is incapable of comprehending the atmosphere, whereas plants determine the fate of all life.


The composition of the atmosphere varies with the vegetation across vast eons of time, which plays a powerful role in the evolution and survival of animals. Breathing serves as the control center of atmospheric content in the exhibition space’s new ecosystem. The plants that live on the artwork’s surface use their stomata as a sensory medium, through which they condition the atmosphere of the exhibition space by controlling the release of carbon dioxide from gas cylinders connected to the installation. While indoor spaces are usually designed with human comfort in mind, Breathing places priority on its own comfort, regulating the environmental conditions to its own needs. Although this conditioning ability may be seen as a weapon against competing species with different needs, through the installation’s data interface it also serves as a warning, protecting other organisms (i.e. humans) from threats to their survival like vertigo and dyspnea.


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