Breath (image above, video below) by Ulrike Gabriel is quite an old (relatively speaking for new media) sonic installation which is, as the title suggests, controlled by the users breath. This time however rather than a piezo film sensor or impeller (see here for some interesting research on the later) to detect air current, the sensor employed is integrated into a belt worn by the user which detects their chest expansion/contraction. As a result the reactive image and sound within the space becomes physically linked to the users physiology and could be considered as anything from an analogy to a heart rate monitor to a completely new organ which the user has to perform with to learn how to control.

By regulating their breathing…visitors can alter the dynamics of the sounds reproduced around them and of the images projected on a surface…in front of them. Their breathing causes the polygons in the computer-generated image to oscillate. The more regular the breathing, the more complex and chaotic the visual and acoustic processes become. Events in ‘Breath’ do not take place in an entirely random way, for the time structure is programmed to make the visitor’s breathing affect images that have just passed. Gabriel here creates a complex system of biological feedback that goes beyond the simple relationship between action and reaction.