Aware of Breath

Date

24 APR 2025 05 JUN 2025 (6 Weeks)

Interactive

What if we moved a little closer to the beauty of breathing, a signal we rarely notice in everyday life? Our group designed a workshop-style experience that translates breath into visual, auditory, and tactile forms through two approaches, one analogue and one digital.

An Unseen Signal, Reframed

We wanted to make brain activity that responds to everyday aesthetic experiences visible and tangible through a low-tech approach. We explored how a very small bodily signal could be amplified with low levels of technological intervention. While biometric sensing is often framed around diagnosis, we proposed reframing it as a playful aesthetic experience. Our aim was to design ways to experience non-visual breath through other senses, including sight, sound, and touch.

From Medical Reading to Playful Aesthetic

We researched the potential of sense translation, centred on synaesthesia as a concept for mapping one sense onto another. We looked into how medical tools such as stethoscopes, pulse reading, and thermometers collect bodily signals, and explored how those signals might be repurposed across different senses. Within the team, we defined four levels of technological involvement, then set criteria for expanding from the lowest level towards the low-tech threshold that fit the brief.

Biometric signals can be interpreted not only as diagnostic data, but also as playful aesthetics, and that cross-sensory translation is a key axis for creating immersion.

Key Concept
A workshop-style installation where two people playfully experience real-time audio-visual feedback from breath.

Building the Feedback Loop

Through the “elephant trunk” test, we designed an analogue feedback loop and collected insights from participants’ breathing experiences. We expanded the analogue prototypes that translate breath into other senses, exploring different possibilities. We then used TouchDesigner to amplify subtle breathing signals and implemented a workshop-style installation that delivers real-time audio-visual feedback.

What the Workshop Taught Us

Although we focused on low technological involvement, we found limitations in amplifying such subtle bodily signals, which left us with a sense of unfinished potential. This question later led into the Breath Knead Kit project. The process also helped us understand how to structure a workshop experience, particularly in designing a “digital bubble” for breathing and guiding participants through it.