Spiritus Sonata

Spiritus Sonata is an artistic representation of animism. ‘Spiritus’ is variously translated from Latin, Hebrew and Greek to mean breath or ‘spirit sense’. With this theoretical combination of breath, spirit, animating the inanimate and investing our characters with digital souls, we aim to engender positive emotion in our audience.
By embedding echoes of childhood play in this installation and linking them to animism we hope to inspire reflection in participants. The same air used to inflate the structures is used to create sounds from their nose extensions, an instrument that operates like an old church pipe organ, another subtle link to worship as well as being a joyful, playful feature.

An untethered isoperimetric soft robot
The simplest version of this squishy robot is an inflated tube that runs through three small machines that pinch it into a triangle shape. One machine holds the two ends of the tube together; the other two drive along the tube, changing the overall shape of the robot by moving its corners. The researchers call it an “isoperimetric robot” because, although the shape changes dramatically, the total length of the edges – and  the amount of air inside – remains the same.

Infection Drivers
Infection Drivers (2019) explores the body under attack. In this work, a CGI figure struggles to move and breathe in a translucent suit, which takes her body through transmutations of stereotypically masculine and feminine physiques as it inflates and deflates. In a time of increased public surveillance through facial-recognition software and biometric data  mining, Cooper’s high-definition world invites us to investigate and perhaps find freedom in the technologies often used to constrain us.

Another Generosity
Another Generosity explores a new structure that consists of a membrane holding two basic elements: air and water. The simple structures are combined to create a visible and dynamic cellular structure. The inflated elements mediate between the natural and built environment. They respond to external and sometimes unseen stimuli, creating a new kind of experience, a momentary hesitation that heightens our awareness of our surroundings.

Defence Cascade
In the installation inflated silicone forms are suspended amidst an austere metal structure, and are prodded by automated rods. Set to contrastingly beautiful music by composer Alex Mills, which is punctuated by the industrial sounds of the mechanised device, the art work looks like a science experiment, or some kind of torture device, and you may find yourself anthropomorphising the poor, inflated bags which are at the mercy of their mechanical environment.

Two Hundred and Seventy
Through the combination of an everyday material with precise technology the mixed media installation fills the whole columned hall from the 19th century with its fluid movement and peculiar sound. Concavely arranged and floating above the spectators heads the form of the artwork seems to pass the skylight like the sun’s rays. Subdivided into nine columns, the nearly 70 square metres large piece of art follows a site-specific choreography determined by a program. Its moving surface is made from 270 white garbage bags, being inflated and deflated. In this way shapes and the boundaries of the installation itself start to dissolve. “Two Hundred and Seventy“ is the first installation with an undisguised view behind the scenes and onto the origin of the wavelike and organic movement: 1080 fans, lots of cables and 45 circuit boards

FILE FESTIVAL
Performance: Capture Part 2

In “Performance Capture: Part 2”, open source motion capture sequences are mapped onto stock low-polygonal unsmoothed 3D characters. Bodies inflate, deflate and oscillate between states, while movements shift and repeat in offset patterns as information transfers from one body to the next. In the animation, what should be used to record, simulate and create perfect virtual realities instead collapses into the uncanny, the abstract and the unreal.

Soft Skin
‘Soft Skin’ is a research project developed by Lubna Alayeli, Nina Jotanovic, Ceren Temel, and Farah Alayeli from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. The work investigates the possibilities of using air inflation in architecture as an active response to changing environmental parameters. The ‘skin’ is composed of a specially developed composite made of thin layers of flexible silicone and elastic fabric. The material system consists of dozens of inflatable cells combined in larger groups. As parameters change — light and wind in this instance — the cells can inflate or deflate in real time. By acting in real time, it is able to reduce wind vibrations and wind drag, and control light infiltration.

INFLATABLE DRESS
Diana Eng, in collaboration with Emily Albinski, created this gorgeous dress way back in 2003, which ended up making its way on the cover of ID Magazine. The designers used this project to explore how they could use electronics to change the shape and color of a gown. The dress inflates to allow you to change it’s shape. Pump up the back or the sides to change its silhouette.
The designers made no attempt to hide the electronics, rather, they exposed the spaghetti-ball of wires and components as the main aesthetic.

Conversation Bubble
At any given moment of time five people are needed to inflate the structure. While the bodies of participants are squeezed and immobilized between two layers of clear vinyl, their heads can move and talk inside the inflated bubble. The duration of the piece depends on the five people’s agreement to end it, as no one can leave on his/her own accord.

The Great Haul
Artist Anna Hepler breaks it all down into the perfect representation of form and leaves the viewer to ponder… which is exactly what every artist should do. Her 2D work evolves from her 3D sculpture that she constructs using various cast off pieces of plastic that are assembled and inflated. She then uses those structures as the spring board for her drawings, paintings and prints.

Deflating pavilion
The light, unbound structure of the deflating pavilion, revolving around the theme “dream” was proposed as a temporary pavilion that subtlety drapes over and encompass the Museum Garden in London. The design creates an inflated, altered reality within the existing landscape.

GIANT INFLATED PILLOWS
The monolithic red cushions have been shown as part of various events throughout brazil, peru, argentina and spain – peppering landscapes with the massive artworks as if squeezed within the crevices of each city. The interventions interrogate architecture and landscape – providing a new perspective on a space that depicts tension and uneasiness.

Bubbles
Bubbles is an adaptable spatial pneumatic installation at an urban scale. The installation consists of large pneumatic volumes that inflate and deflate in reaction to the visitors coming to the site. If unoccupied the volume of the site is slowly filled by the spatially distributed sacks creating a translucent bubble translucent infill. As the occupants enter and move through the installation, they bump the bubbles ranging from 6′ to 8′ in diameter that fill the lower layer of the space. More activity opens up the space more making it navigable. Sensors in the bubbles cause a fan in the manifold to transfer air to the bubble.

Like living organisms

“Like living organisms” is an interactive skin-dress that expresses excitement like between two people when they first meet. Our work breathes; it shows a pulse through its veins on the hips and inflates/deflates the shoulder balloons. When approached it responds by increasing its pulse rate through the veins as if it’s excited. It’s now up to the visitor to respond to this excitement. Upon contact the suit will show it’s vulnerable side by deflating the shoulder balloons.