Respiratory Mask Ensemble (2023)

Duration: 5'21''
Program Note: a micro-model of society

By building the installation and instructing the performance, I’m trying to make a micro-model of society represented by breathing through sealed respiratory masks, to discuss the relationship between individual identity and community: class, power dynamics, hierarchy, and other socio-political topics. And the relations/ interactions between the three people are:

when 1st and 2nd person breathe in and out/ making sounds alone:
their sound will be captured and amplified individually;
their lights will turn white synchronically and its speed represents the amount of breathe they give individually;

when 1st person is breathing/ making sounds, and 2nd person joins in/ interrupts:
1st person’s sound will be synthesized and this person’s light will turn green;

when 2nd person is breathing/ making sounds, and 1st person joins in/ interrupts:
2nd person’s sound will be distorted and this person’s light will turn red;

3rd person enters without making sound (not captured/ amplified)：
this person only contributes breath into the green parent space (community!) at this moment,
but this person’s light is triggered and progressed by the length of constant breathing maintained by all three people;
- the 3rd person is the class that contributes least but benefits most from the society;

until later the 3rd person starts to give order and the other two start to follow him:
now the total spacial change of the installation will determine the degree of modulation for the other two people’s sound totality;
- here the 3rd person rises to the highest echelon of power;

until the oxygen inside of the installation (all community’s resource) is nearly exhausted:
the first two people exit/ die, and the 3rd person keep consuming the rest of the oxygen left;