MATT WARREN - THE SMALL HOURS
art/installation


EXHALATION  (2008 - ongoing)

An ongoing performance and sound installation work that very much deals with intervention of an
installed surface and the residue of a performed action. This is a work that deals with the idea of
mortality. For every year I have been alive, I exhale a breath for as long as I can onto a clear
piece of glass to catch the breath in the form of condensation. There is also a microphone below
that picks up the sound, amplifies and reverberates it. One can barely hear the inhalation, as the work is
about a life-force element leaving the body and leaving a residue on a transparent surface.
When performed and documented a video camera is placed in front to capture the image,
it is either projected in real time or shown later, as in the version shown at CAST in 2009 in the group
exhibition ‘Lust For Life’. In that case, further manipulation of the surface took place with the
projection surface of a square of Perspex being sanded to capture the image,
alluding to a piece of steamed up glass.