Breathe

Breathe is a prototype for a networked installation that is connected to a proposed mindfulness phone application Compos(ur)e. The application is inspired by Buddhist monk and poet Thich Nhat Hanh’s practices of incorporating mindfulness into everyday experiences, in particular the practice of turning elements of the world we encounter into ‘bells of mindfulness’.

Compos(ur)e will be a mobile phone application that enables a social network of people to create technological bells of mindfulness for one another. When a user breathes into their phone they ring a bell for themselves and send a bell to someone else in the network. The users in the network are linked anonymously; the users share an intention to transform the way they hear the bells that call out from their mobile device. This interconnection is materialised in a mobile phone installation, composed of the connections made in the application. The mobile phone application sends notifications between the application users and also to the artwork.

This work was supported by The Awesome Foundation (Sydney) and the College of Fine Arts.