Time:
Tuesday, 21 January 2025, 6 p.m. 

Cloud HD Video Meeting us02web.zoom.us

Breathing is a fundamentally relational technique. It creates an intrinsic connection between the individual and their environment, linking the internal physiological state with external rhythms. Breathing reflects and influences emotional and mental states, creating a continuous feedback loop between body and mind. Through conscious breathing practices, individuals can mediate this relationship, using breath as a tool to harmonize physiological and psychological processes.

»Breathing Data« is an introspective research project that merges art and science through a self-experiment conducted by the artist researcher. Over a three-month period, the researcher engages in daily breathing exercises and systematically collects physiological data using advanced sensor technologies. The study is predicated on the hypothesis that regular and mindful breathing practices can lead to measurable improvements in key health indicators such as heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), breathing rate, and sleep quality.

The methodology involves the structured learning and application of pranayama breathing techniques and the careful tracking and comparison of the collected data points, including a questionnaire that captures daily events and well-being on a subjective level. Guided by the investigation of how daily data collection influences behavior and how practice manifests in the data, the research also aims to determine the empowering as well as the problematic effects of data-driven practices. A critical aspect of the project is the relationship between measurement and self-awareness. The confrontation of two different epistemic systems triggers an inner »dialogue with the data,« in which the researcher constantly squares different forms of information, weighs them against each other and corrects her behavior accordingly, highlighting the dynamic relationship between quantification and perception, between consciousness and physicality, between mind and matter. In any case, self-tracking can create new relationships and deepen existing ones.

About Cornelia Sollfrank:
Cornelia Sollfrank (PhD) is an artist, researcher and writer, living in Berlin. Recurring subjects in her artistic and academic work in and about digital cultures are artistic infrastructures, new forms of (political) self-organization, critical authorship, aesthetics of the commons, and techno-feminist practice and theory. Her projects net.art generator – a web-based art-producing ›machine,‹ and Female Extension have earned her a reputation as a pioneer of net art. Recent research projects at Zurich University of the Arts: »Latent Spaces. Performing Ambiguous Data« and »Creating Commons.« Recent publications: »Contemporaneity in Embodied Data Practices« (Sternberg Press), »The beautiful Warriors. Technofeminist Practice in the 21st Century« (minorcompositions.org), »Aesthetics of the Commons« (diaphanes.net) and »Fix My Code« (with Winnie Soon) (eeclectic.de). Homepage: artwarez.org