Co-Breathing II (2024)

Pipes instrument for collective playing, 4 performers, 15 min

Performance at Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne Germany

My breath becomes a piece of yours, your breath becomes a fragment of mine. This exchange involves dividing, occupying, and taking away, yet, it also signifies sharing, unifying, and flowing. Paths resonate as we breathe together.

The instrument is designed to gather breath in a common resonant container and experiments with acoustic effects of air flow. Metal tubes are assembled and disassembled into individual pipe lines for their own path by performers, in order to improvise with breathing techniques. It is not about playing a specific tone or making a musical harmony, but about the interaction between performers through an intimate encounter: Co-Breathing. Each breath contains personal characteristics such as the shape of lips, speed, length and temperature, follows its own path and generates a different frequency. It flows into the connected common pipe instrument where all breaths are mingled and blended.