all the time in the world

On average, we take 16 breaths per minute, 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 a year. If we live to 80, we’ll take about 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime.

Time feels infinitely longer when you hold your breath. 

Using extremely slow underwater cinematography, the installation all the time in the world considers lived time at its extreme, exploring our relationship to water that is both terrifying and compelling. How does time slow down as breathing changes?  Focusing on people able to hold their breath for extended periods, the work explores how fear gives way to a different experience of time over the duration of breath holds. What can we understand about our most fundamental action from such extreme experience?

Michele Barker + Anna Munster, 2019

Chris Bryan: Cinematography

Nadia Piave: Mezzo-soprano

Image details: Still from hold, multi channel video and audio installation (2019)