Description:
Respiring Data is a bioart installation that visualizes the invisible exchanges of gases between humans, plants, and microbes in enclosed environments. The work explores how respiration—biological and digital—can become a metaphor for interdependence and feedback.

In the installation, sealed glass bioreactors containing moss and cyanobacteria cultures are fitted with CO₂, O₂, and humidity sensors. Visitors exhale into the chamber through a one-way valve, briefly altering the system’s balance. These shifts trigger generative light and sound sequences representing the “breathing” rhythm of the ecosystem.

The project merges live biological sensing with data aesthetics, asking how environmental feedback can become a form of shared authorship between humans and non-human organisms.

Keywords:
bioart, respiration, environmental sensing, feedback systems, microbial aesthetics, human–plant interaction