Sýmpnoia

Sýmpnoia is an interactive immersive installation where participants’ breathing controls soft inflatable sculptures, light, and sound in real time through biofeedback sensing. By transforming breath into a shared sensory experience, the project explores synchronisation, nonverbal communication, and collective presence between strangers.

Project Video

Abstract

How can biofeedback technologies move beyond self-tracking and measurement to foster human connection? Sýmpnoia, from the Greek meaning “breathing together”, is an interactive immersive installation that transforms breathing into a shared sensory experience. The project explores how physiological sensing technologies, often associated with surveillance, optimisation, or personal wellness tracking, might instead cultivate intimacy, collective presence, and interpersonal resonance.

The installation consists of three soft inflatable sculptures illuminated from within by LED light, situated inside a semi-enclosed atmospheric environment. Participants wear a breathing belt fitted with an air-pressure sensor around the abdomen, allowing their abdominal breathing to be measured in real time. Their breathing patterns directly control the inflation and deflation of the sculptures, changes in light intensity, and shifts within an evolving soundscape. Through this system, an internal and usually invisible bodily rhythm becomes externalised into movement, light, and sound.

Rather than functioning as an individual interface, the installation is designed as a shared environment experienced collectively. As audiences remain within the space, they gradually become aware not only of their own breathing but also of the rhythms of others through subtle environmental cues. Participants may begin to unconsciously adjust their breath, respond nonverbally, or synchronise with one another. The work investigates how technology can mediate forms of connection that occur beyond language, through embodied rhythm and co-presence.

Situated within interactive media art, embodied interaction, and biofeedback-based installation practices, Sýmpnoia engages with broader contemporary concerns surrounding technology and the body. As biometric sensing becomes increasingly integrated into everyday life from wearable devices to affective computing systems, physiological data is frequently reduced to metrics of productivity, health, or emotional classification. This project proposes an alternative approach: one in which bodily data becomes relational rather than extractive, fostering awareness between people instead of merely analysing them.

By transforming breath into a collective atmospheric experience, Sýmpnoia asks whether technology can be designed not only to measure the human body, but also to deepen our sensitivity toward one another.

Photos