Breath as sound, and the sun below
Breaths become sound objects that play the cloud like an instrument — and a projector on the floor turns us into the sun.
Playing the cloud
An image for the sound design: each out-breath becomes a sound object that drifts through the space. When it reaches the cloud, it plays the cloud like an instrument. When several people’s notes arrive together, they form chords. Held chords become drones that grow louder over time, signalling a phase transition. The ambient light follows, reflecting the transition and the intensity of the chords.
The shape of the experience also settled that day:
- A long night of just breathing, with no augmentation at all.
- A rising crescendo of playing the cloud together, which brings the dawn.
- Daytime, and plain breath again.
Being the sun
We tried lighting the tulle cloud with a projector from below. The beams through the tulle looked beautiful, and the cloud cast its shadow onto the ceiling.
That suggested an inversion. If the light comes from beneath, we are the sun, projecting onto the cloud from below, and the ceiling becomes the Earth. The shadows on the ceiling suddenly make sense. There could be a dramatic, disorienting reveal: people believe they are on the ground, then realise they are the sky.
Practical notes: it’s hard to keep the cloud’s structure legible from a single point of view. A web structure above might help, perhaps with elastic lines, so the cloud can deform and still keep its approximate shape.