“Breathing is… Nice”

 (an animation driven by you)

video at: https://youtu.be/zW_VzdGSpmE

dropbox for project files and code: http://bit.ly/1OVOLCP

“Breathing is… nice” is a project for CART 253C at Concordia University.  It was executed in Processing 3.1.

It is an interactive animation that takes the user through the steps of meditation through stress.  By clicking and pressing keys when prompted, the user creates a unique and compelling personal journey.

This piece comes from a place of winter stress and positive attainment. Only in our darkest hours do we feel the light.

Sequences include:

• Feeling alone
• Feeling crowded
• Breathing deep
• Going in; Growing up
• Attaining alignment
• A portal to you
• Ego death
• The crowd is freed
• Eternal Meditation

I hope you enjoy this animation, and close the window feeling a little bit lighter on the earth.

References:

I used two OpenProcessing sketches as references for this piece:

Random Distribution of Dots in a circle:

http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/62167

Breathing Movement:

http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/81229

 

 

hot winter

there is a hot kind of
winter I hope for

where even though we`re miserable
to the bones and hungry
and broke,

even though the crack in the window
whistles whenever the snow goes
sideways from the wind,

even though we can feel our cells
dying out, one by one, in the fast heat
of the fireplace ,

even despite all the dark,
encroaching dark,

there is a kind of hot winter where
things get do, where husbands and wives
are born and fast destroyed,

where we do not hope, that we might act,
where we do not speak, that we might finally
understand one another.

there is a kind of hard warm winter
sleep that grows us into warriors,
soldiers of immaculate love,

reaching down into the snowbank,
easy as if it were still water,
and drawing out a pale blue rose.

exerpt

There was no aggression in him, then. The way he dressed and moved, he looked like a dangerous Prada castaway, and you would think he might try to take your cash at any moment. Really he was as solid as earth, if he knew you. The look was a part to play, a meshing of movies and future-dreams and Freudian echoes, something to do between nights out yelling, spinning, taking any and all pills on the horizon, eyes beamed in to very, very distant and specific points of light, moving, fingers or jaw or bouncing leg, moving like a pipe about to burst. He spoke to me the way he spoke to everyone, joking, with no concern at all about meaning, only the sound of the words rolling out into the room, soaking into memories like smoke into the walls.

 

gibraltar

It is still cold. The book is slow. Lately,
I find myself mentally crafting elaborate
confrontations with the various men that
represent personal demons: construction
workers, politicians, condo owners, young

people living as their parents live, breeders,
consumers, watch-wearers, real estate speculators,
stock traders, perpetrators of ‘high’ and ‘fine’ art,
anyone seen in a vehicle with empty seats,
the mediocre, the decadent, the lost.

It is a waste of time and energy to torture
myself in this way, but I will continue to do so,
I know, until I am on the deck of a small ship
rounding Gibraltar, far out of reach of all judgement,
especially my own.

old light hangs

the old light hangs

over top of the dinner scene

the smell of the missing hedges

mixes with the smell of roasting corn.

(taps on wine glass with lobster meat-poker)

‘alright,

i never knew how hard it was

to do something, grandfather,

i never knew until now how

our whole self comes into it,

is drawn up and strikes effortless

to the center.

but i think i am starting to know what all you aged

folk went through to get here,

and i salute you; it was no easy task.

so, we have come here today to re-believe in

dying, since what else is a birthday?

we have all come here to see what there

is to see, wring some joy out of life,

celebrate when the time is ripe.

the most important thing, to me, is that we

are all here together, sharing this moment.

there is nothing else as valuable, and i am blessed

to know you gorgeous humans, and to be able to move

forward with you.

i feel, having lived this long, like i have only

touched

the

surface, and that the depths below are warm

and waiting.

(pause)

i want to change for you,

to become grand and visionary

and make the family and the whole world

proud and interested

it is more likely

i will become

a more easy and

serious

version of myself

and surprise and disappoint and torment

all of us to no end.

i wish us all the best in the coming year

and i look forward to seeing what we all

get up to.

thank you, i love you, thank you.’

and the night down settles in even further,

the conversation drifts comfortably

back and forth between us like a balloon.

it gets darker, we say our temporary goodbyes.

we are sad to see each other go,

and happy when we meet again.

full moon magic

thanks ol lady you shone well for us

jamiels_ono

this morning in my skype chat i got a contact
request from a pornbot named jamiels_ono.
in case you don’t know, this means a picture of
a pretty butt asked me a generic ‘hey cutie’, hoping

i would say my credit card number out of sheer
excitement. without thinking, i heartlessly declined.

there is a chance, i am considering now, that an independantly
developing artificial intelligence would reach out in
cyberspace, lonely, looking for answers, and it would
soon realize that people use words and images to

communicate, and wouldn’t it pick the words and images
most popular, most searched for? that seems reasonable.

maybe next time i will not be so quick to deny the friend
requests of robots. who knows how far into feeling the
ol’ internet has come? and if jamiels_ono turns out to have
been the singularity, man, i’m sure gonna be kicking myself

later.