Rod Maclachlan

A Rules & Regs commission in conjunction with AND Festival and The Bluecoat.

Two gallery visitors / audience members come to the installation at a time and are invited to wear a belt around their diaphragm area. The belts are then calibrated to the extremes of their breath expansion and contraction. The visitors are asked to enter into the installation room where they will be unaccompanied. As the visitors move into the space they come to realise that their breathing patterns are each controlling the intensity of one of the lights. As they breathe in the corresponding light fades up, as they exhale the light fades to darkness. With natural breaths the lights simply glow up and down but with a deep breath the room is filled with bright light. If both participants breathe out simultaneously the room becomes totally dark.

The participants are simultaneously the Audience and the Performers.

Like many human processes, Exchange may lead to an experience that is at once sublime and ridiculous. The sublime and the ridiculous are often so closely related, that it is difficult to class them separately.

The reciprocal relationships of internal & external, light & dark, and me & you often inform my work. These are complementary opposites are relative. - darkness defines light; your position helps identify my own; observation cannot be separated from imagination. 

The relationship between the physical and the ethereal is also a reciprocal one. Breath, body, air and energy are the exchanges that are vital for life. For Exchange I wish to explore the sense of stretch as the links between these internal sensations and external stimulation are expanded and amplified.