스킵네비게이션

1. Raqs Media Collective, <O2>, 2021, LED Screen, Automated seesaw with oxygen cylinder, Single-channel video 7 min 50 sec, Seesaw 47 x 234 x 40 cm, LED screen 200 x 300 cm

At the end of a pier on the East Sea, an oxygen cylinder rolls to and fro on a mechanical see-saw moving to its own measured rhythm. An LED screen stands at some distance before it, lit up by a spectrographic video of an underwater diver in which the vivid bubbles from the diver’s lungs accumulate and disperse. Oxygen tanks now litter our private lives, especially becoming coveted objects in India during the height of the pandemic. But given the catastrophic stratospheric pollution by capitalist industries contributing to a wider bio-ecological collapse, breathable air is at stake for all non-/human bodies beyond this particular virus. The disconcerting movement of the see-saw and jarring drop of the tank signify the sudden loss of oxygen caused by this shared crisis of breathing.