Breathing City is a multimedia installation, depicting an unnamed public square in an urban setting on four monitors, each one running through the same camera-controlled movements at different times of day. The video loops are offset a few seconds, and there was also a fifth monitor which showed several other similarly-filmed sequences. Supposedly, there is also a surround sound performance of six breathing voices, timed to the video, but this element was apparently so subtle that none of the spectators while I was there even noticed it.

The offset video loops themselves create a somewhat interesting view around the square, but I was most drawn to the fifth monitor, which showed me different locations, more than watching the same location at different times. This is largely attributable to the fact that, while there were certainly different people and activities displayed, nothing was surprising from one monitor to the next. While the desired effect seems to be to make the viewer aware of the intricate ballet of city squares, it felt more like watching through a security camera, with the computer controlled cameras severely underlining the sense of surveillance.

The absence of the soundtrack was also troubling to me, when I discovered later that I had missed it. Was it not working, or just entirely too subtle? Did it act on me in a subconscious way at all, I wonder? Most importantly, would it have made the installation seem more alive, as the creators intended, or, as I suspect, would the voices appear as the manifest breath of Big Brother himself? I can only speculate, of course, but I find the fact that the authors did not address the surveillance issue directly somewhat troubling.