Breath Cloud is a sound installation that was commissioned by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. It was installed there May 10, 2014 – August 17, 2014 as part of the “Cloud of Unknowing” Show. It created a morphological liminal space between human breath and atmospheric, cloud-like, airiness. Using 90 mp3 players suspended from the ceiling it disperses an aggregate cloud of sound, which is also individually, uniquely, articulate. Installed in the gateway into the “Cloud of Unknowing” section of the group show, Breath Cloud serves as a sonic gateway, an airlock transition, between a cloud-like sensibility of amorphousness and material specificity, two aspects that the piece itself manifests.

To create the sonic aggregate of the breath-like cloud, I recorded sounds of my voice, as I performed breath-like effects, exhaling and inhaling, changing vowels at different rates.  In order articulate the space, to create a kind of statistical counterpoint, I sang plosives and sharp, short, accents. I then made 90 individual soundfiles, unique to each of the 90 speakers and their location, making sure that each soundfile has a different density of articulate (plosives) activity, as well as duration. This ensures that the aggregate whole will express a consistent gestalt, whereas, at each moment, the overlaps of the 90 speakers with varying accents and durations will never replicate – it creates an ever-changing whole.

MORE INSTALLATIONS