Breath foliage is an interactive art work that idealizes the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature through breath. In this installation, participants exhale into a carbon dioxide station, which collects the breath and converts it into branches of a tree. Through this, Breath Foliage questions the equilibrium between humans and nature, which is mediated by the quality of air in our surrounding. In the current age of anthropocene, how long will this equilibrium be maintained before we hit the tipping point? By collecting and storing the participant's breath into a growing foliage, this work wishes to store this breath as a promise to reflect upon the quality of air around us.
Breath data was collected using a MQ135 gas sensor connected to an Arduino, which was calibrated to be sensistive to carbon dioxide in the room. The breath data was sent to another machine using OSC (open source control) signals running a processing sketch, which was responsible to grow the tree.
