the breath
as Lila (play)
Exploring the breath as a source of all creation
— for all but a moment.
In this Hindu creation story— It is said that Lord Vishnu lies suspended in the causal ocean- “When He exhales, the material elements and universes emanate from Him, and when He inhales, the universes are destroyed and merge back into His body.”
It is clear that I am drawn to Indian mythology, to the magical stories I’ve grown up with, and to the cosmic wonders they attempt to capture. I find this image extremely evocative. I wonder if I am attempting to, in a way, recreate this image?
In a sense this visual resonates with the multiverse theory. The imagery of which is strikingly similar.
Here is a line from the film ‘The Sun is also a Star’ (based on the novel of the same name written by Nicola Yoon):
Natasha Kingsley: [voice over] The Theory of Multiverse was set forth originally by Hugh Everett in quantum mechanics. It posited that every version of our past and future histories exists, just in an alternate universe. This means that for every choice you make, an infinite number of universes exist where you made a different choice. In this way, we get to live multiple lives. I’m not quite sure which universe I’m living in now.
It is quite an interesting parallel to this creation story. It surely takes me back to ‘Samsara’ where we looked at multiple lives and multiple stories existing within a storyverse.
I am reminded of the technique used in the film ‘Powers of Ten’ by Ray Eames for IBM that demonstrates the miniscule yet magnanimous nature of existence. It uses technology to take the viewer across space exponentially, visually enlightening the viewer about the Matryoshka like character of the universe and it’s various facets.
The following is a scene from a film I admire greatly- Life of Pi
“Vishnu sleeps, floating on the shoreless cosmic ocean, and we are the stuff of his dreams”
I was deeply interested in this during my undergrad. And I find myself thinking about it again. There is something about this story- this moment, that keeps drawing me to it. I find myself constantly circling back to it. It’s inexplicable.
The following story when listened to with your eyes closed is an experience in itself. Lord Vishnu is also synonymous with Time. American astronomer and cosmologist Carl Sagan famously said-
“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” — Carl Sagan
I read a paper by Kate Elswit, these were some of the key portions that stood out to me.
[…] breath occupies a unique status as both voluntary and involuntary, the only major function of the body that is managed unconsciously in a manner that can be overruled by conscious control (Eccleston 2016 , 79; see also Calais-Germain 2006 ).
A key aspect of such external breath is agency: as much as breath is a quality that we move, it also has a force of its own, and can move us.
These combine in a cyclical relationship between the de-familiarization of breath, the reincorporation of that breath object into bodily experience, and then the shifting of that outside-in breath back out again.
[…] technologies of the quantified self tend to treat the body as an object to be disciplined according to narrow parameters, rather than expanding corporeal registers of feeling, when in fact there needs to be more emphasis on the complexity of transitions ‘ between feelings and numbers’ (Crawford, Karppi, and Lingel 2015 , 489; Schüll 2016 ).
[…] somatic practices offer interdisciplinary frameworks to contribute to technological understandings of embodiment and experience, to ultimately shape design, creativity, and use (Schiphorst 2009 ; see also Kozel 2007 ; Bleeker 2010 ).
Kate Elswit (2019): A living cabinet of breath curiosities: somatics, biomedia, and the archive, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, DOI:10.1080/14794713.2019.1633107
The followings works based on the breath were truly inspiring.
The above installation was made by Shilo Shiv Sulemaan for Burning Man, a senior of mine at my previous institute. I’ve always been very inspired by her work.
Photographer Joey Terrill adopts a lovely aesthetic by capturing the beauty of water droplets.
Naturally I have taken up physical computing to aid this, experimenting with the breath and its temporality to create moments of interaction that could make an experience ‘sensitive’.
I looked up some pricey sensors that detect breathing:
and looked at some experiments people had conducted using microphones.
Microphone: I had to start with a basic test with a microphone and processing. However it is obvious that a microphone would pick up almost everything.
Polygraph: This is rather odd- it is hard to tell what this even measures. Nervousness?
Thermistor : With the thermistor the sensor needed to be uncomfortably close to your nostril. I highly doubt anyone wants their nose in this business.
Temperature and Humidity Sensor: This one worked rather well but needed me to blow into it more or less. Since it was working on the basis of temperature there were too many variables to consider, and location specific calibration.
…
After having a conversation with Antoine, I became aware of the sensor that I needed. It was the Rev.C Wind Sensor. It was perfect! So sensitive it could sense my breath from a decent distance with little to no interference.
So what does the breath control? In the case of Lord Vishnu, who is synonymous with time, he controls the lifespan of universes through his breath. How can we use the breath to control time?
Could you hold your breath to suspend in a moment? Gasp to pause? Can your breath act as a control panel?
I managed to get the breath data to control the playback speed of a video using Processing. The faster you breathe, the faster the video plays, if you hold your breath, the video comes to a standstill!
It feels like Prāṇāyāma in Yoga — a practice of breath control Ramamurti Mishra defines it as the expansion of individual energy into cosmic energy. It could also mean the suspension of breath.
What else could I control with the breath? The generation of virtual objects?Lights? Movement? Sound? Projections?
It made me think of breathing and buoyancy.
Could we use the breath to immerse ourselves and resurface?
“We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality.” — Janet Murray (Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology)
Immersion is the mental representation of a virtual space, a transportation to an altered mental state. The moment you submerge yourself into a body of water, everything that you know to be real on terrestrial ground alters. Your hearing deafens, your weight lightens, your sight blurs. Even the sunlight bends and refracts. Whether you are immersed in a physical pool of water or learning a new language, the reality you previously experienced gives way to a new sensory experience. — Stephanie Riggs in The End of Storytelling: The Future of Narrative in the Storyplex .
This excerpt set the scene for my experience. I have always had a fascination for water. I’ve heard water doesn’t render in VR. Deception and trickery is necessary. Here are some other folks trying to control virtual objects using the breath on unity.
And now I’m running out of breath.
