~Proceedings ICMCISMCI2014 14-20 September 2014, Athens, Greece
The Breath Engine: Challenging Biological and Technological Boundaries
through the Use of NK Complex Adaptive Systems
Joe Cantrell
University of California, San Diego
joe@joecantrell.net
Colin Zyskowski
University of California, San Diego
colin.zyskowski@gmail.com
Drew Ceccato
University of California, San Diego
drewceccato@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Breath Engine is an interface and performance system that
draws focus to the ephemeral nature of the actions of living beings and how they intersect with the world of the
artificial and computational.
The piece relies on human respiration to create and affect
a generative sound synthesis system modeled on evolutionary algorithms. The respiration system is controlled by 1
- 3 participants, who wear oxygen masks that transfer the
breath of the performers into electromechanical pressure
sensors mounted in the project enclosure. These sensors
convert the respiration levels of each performer into digital
information, which is then used to affect a self-generative
audio synthesis system. This generation is based on NK
complex adaptive systems, which mathematician Stephen
J. Lansing purports to be a potentially important factor in
determining long term changes in mechanical and natural
systems, such as biological evolution. This system generates iterative arrays of timbre and frequency that are perturbed by data received from the breathing sensors, causing chaotic reactions that eventually coalesce into repeating patterns.
In this way, the piece will enact an evolving visual and
sonic environment that questions the boundaries between
the biological and the technological.
1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
1.1 Difference and Technology
As mobile technology incites humanity towards a way of
life that is inseparable from the technological devices of
our creation, it becomes ever more imperative that the philosophical and human concerns relating to questions of difference be addressed in works involving the biological and
the technological. An effective way addressing these is
through exploring the idea of difference.
When properly addressed, the highlighting of difference
enacted in technologically-related performance practices
creates contested spaces, which become sites of questioning not only technological and biological concerns, but of
larger issues of difference and subjectivity. The conception of difference at play here is not one rooted in tradiCopyright: 2014 Joe Cantrell et al. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the ru d n, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original author and source are credited.
tions of patriarchy or adversarial relationships between actors, but one that uses difference as a means of creating
combinatory reactions that question the positioning of audience/performer/composer as well as the relationship between the technological and the biological. An effective
method of visualizing this process is through the use of the
phenomenon of diffraction as metaphor for this enacting of
difference.
1.2 Diffraction as metaphor
Diffraction is the process whereby waves in motion combine and pass through each other when traveling through
a given medium. Instead of reflecting and resisting other
waves, they combine to enact patterns of interference that
create new movement and structure based on a co-constructed
enactment of difference. That is, when waves interact, they
add their relative values to create a new combined value at
the point of contact (see Figure 1.)
Figure 1: Illustration of diffraction created by Thomas
Young in 1803. A and B represent slits in which waves
are directed. When the waves interfere with one another
they produce the patterns shown.
Science and Technology Studies scholar Donna Haraway
outlines a valuable conceit of diffraction as a discourse for
a renewed sense of understanding of difference and othering that rejects human exceptionalism. By discounting the
assumption of a hierarchical system of relationships between agents in a given discourse, new methods of ideating
and accepting co-constructed points of creativity can come
to light. For Haraway, the idea of diffraction is important
in creating a renewed understanding of how bodies both
human and otherwise, interact in a co-entangled existence.
This concept of diffraction is a vital lens with which to examine new possibilities of interacting and redefining our
concept of interface and the agency of bodies and objects
within a technological system. With this in mind, the con
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