Breathearth is an interactive installation made with a Raspberry Pi, a small earth globe and a projector.
Visitors are invited to take the small globe in their hands and gently blow on it. With every breath flowers and leaves appear on a surface or an object until it is covered with colour and life. Every new session presents other combinations of vegetation and it is a surprise to see what flowers one has created by breathing. When breathing is interrupted, you’ll note that after just a while the natural vegetation disappears: the earth cannot survive without our breath!
Breathearth is a work in progress. Several versions have already been created, for screens of different sizes and for large projections, with different backgrounds, leaves and flowers.
But in 2020, when the pandemic began, this work in progress came to a halt. Breathing and blowing freely on an object had become extremely risky and anyway, wearing a mask made it impossible to blow on the globe.
Recently I created an absolutely corona proof alternative. I called this new work „Breathearth Ovation“: instead of breathing, you have to clap in your hands near the earth globe. The sound of your hands clapping will allow the flowers to come out of their lockdown.