Ex.A.R.U.

The Ex.A.R.U. (Exo Auxiliary Respiratory Unit) project involves a monoculture greenhouse (with broad-leaved aglaonema and alocasia plants) around which an experiential situation of controlled breathing takes place, necessary to maintain human functions in extreme environments where air is absent, scarce or unsuitable for inhalation. In outer space, which is at the core of the artist’s interest, this speculative situation appears as an imaginary landscape that can provide the means to think the survival of humans, who are physiologically determined by the atmospheric substrate of their home planet. In the imaginary dramaturgy, the greenhouse is conceived as one of many units planted with vegetation optimised for maximum oxygen production and equipped with sensors and watering systems, acting as a life-support systems for the survival of the human body in an airless environment. In Ex.A.R.U., breathing air, which on planet Earth is taken for granted, becomes via the experience of momentary asphyxia the ultimate edge where visitors can put on a breathing mask connected to the dome and thereby experience and internalise the elemental necessity, as well as ephemerality, of the thin layer of air that envelops all life on Earth.

Credits:

Concept and execution: Dorotea Dolinšek 
Produced by: Kersnikova Institute – Kapelica Gallery within the framework of the konS ≡ Platform for Contemporary Inestigative Art
Curator: Jurij Krpan 
Producers: Sandra Sajovic, Simon Gmajner 
Technical solutions: ::vtol:: (Dmitry Morozov) 
Technical support: Jure Sajovic 
Textile: Uroš Topić 
Construction: Rompom d.o.o. 
Special acknowledgements: Barbara Sušnik