BREATHING STAIRCASES

Conceived of with the artist group One&Seven, the Breathing Staircases is the first site-specific installation created for MEET Digital Culture Center’s Living  Staircases.

An immersive video and audio intervention across the multistorey surfaces of this particular architectural space of the building, it was on view from October 12, 2022—Jan 8, 2023. It has been re-actualized for MuseoCity, Milano, March 3—5, 2023.

One&Seven was established from the meeting and academic experience of seven artists identified by a wide range of artistic and media practices at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Coming from different backgrounds, identities and practices,  they gathered around the desire to manifest a path leading to the unveiling of the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible.  

Breathing Staircases is the result of their research on individual and collective identity and interpersonal dynamics interpreted through the idea of breath, which seeks expression and embodiment of its relationship with the world. 

Designed by architect Carlo Ratti to "explore the meaning of physical space in a digital world", the stairs are a vibrant vertical core connecting exhibition and office spaces. Through a simultaneous 7-channel multi-projection with audio, they are transformed into a pulsating body through the layering of images conditioned and animated by the sound of voices and breath of the artists. 

This architectural space is seen as a multi-sensory and dynamic living organism, intimate and personal: the place of participatory response to a collective exchange reflecting art, philosophy, poetry and life. Visitors experience the meditative fruition of the primordial condition of breath through their personal and emotional involvement in an immersive place of vision and listening through an ever-changing and inclusive movement: the expression of the "Singular and Collective Universe" of which all who access it become an active and conscious part.

The installation has been achieved through the generous support of MEET Digital Culture Center, in partnership with IED Milano and School of Visual Arts, New York.

With the collaboration of: 

  • Davide Sgalippa: Co-Chair with Rossella Bertolazzi of the School of Visual Arts at IED Milan;  Professor at IED Milan and the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo; exhibition and multimedia  Media designer at TheBuss team. 

  • Marco Ferrari: Digital Designer; video and audio designer at IED Milan. 

  • Solian Clerici: Exhibition and Light Designer at IED Milan and TheBuss team.

Technical Sponsor: Epson