Taking our first breath after birth; it signals our entrance, our livelihood. The way our chest moves up and down in rhythm, in sync with our sleep and dreams—and then the way it changes when we awaken, and our thoughts challenge the cadence.
PneumoMachinic is a sound-art exhibition on now at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster. Multiple artists explore the impact of breath, through installations that capture the influence on, and from, technology, speech, and sound.
First, artist Ali Miharbi with Whispering shares a kind of intimate version of breath, where if you close your eyes it’s hard to distinguish device from person. Recognizable sounds of exasperation and whispers transport you into your memories and communicate something cross-culturally familiar, something human. It makes you conscious of your own subtle inhales and exhales as you walk through the exhibit adding quietly to the rhythms.
For artist Xoán-Xil, Organismo, a symphony of sound—the acoustic dimensions communicate an otherworldliness that transcends the here and now. Multiple pieces coming together through Organismo to emulate breath through wind and flow, incorporating the reverberations around the room in this sound-art exhibition. It makes you think about connectedness, melody, and the mechanics of devices and people working together—like PneumoMachinic.
Artist Cristhian Ávila Cipriani, with El Etorno Retorno, takes us on a historical and almost anthropological exploration of breath through ancient pre-hispanic instruments, interconnected, and connected again through modern technology. Using 3D printers and wind data technology to recreate an era of sound, the differences in pitch and length come together through the exhibit in an evocatively harmonious way. Connecting you to other places, as you imagine living beings using their lifeforce to coordinate such sounds, almost tauntingly and majestically, eerily but peacefully.
Whether you arrive by skytrain or car, the sounds of life around you are sure to intensify and make you reflect after experiencing the vitality of this sound-art exhibition. PneumoMachinic is on now until August 18 at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster.
Article by Jaclyn Hayward
To get to the New Media Gallery, take the Expo Line Skytrain to New Westminster Station. From there, it’s a two-minute walk to the Anvil Centre, where NMG is located on the 3rd floor.