Compositions for the Breaths we Take

By: Alexandra-Naledi Holtman

This work consists of a video of 09:57 minutes, comprising eight shorter clips in series. The image that forms the visual basis for the video is an interpretive ink painting of a minute of breath, where a dampened page would be dotted with ink with each out-breath in a minute. Being guided by this, the video series features the movement of this representation of breath in various visual compositions and is voiced through the processing of Pixelsynth that has been used to generate sound directly from these visual representations. The layering of these components has given rise to a video series that engages the visual and the sonic in unison and brings time along in this stream of investigation. The series also aims to bring our awareness to the breath, its invisibility, its synonymity with the present moment and how thoughts of its accumulation as a representation of life could encourage us to think differently about our experience of time, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.