Will Pappenheimer ‘s Breathe On Me installation consists of a three-walled space with fan/webcam devices on the walls. The fan/webcams are modified netcams such that Internet users can control the direction of the fan from the remote webcam view. They can choose one of the devices, spot visitors in the physical space and then turn on the fan and “breath” towards the person.

Visitors who enter the space accept to receive a telepresent stranger’s glance and touch in the form of wind.

This installation explores the possibilities and limits of telepresence. It hopes to redirect the surveillance motive of webcams into a tangible situation of giving and receiving. It explores the boundary between technological ephemerality and corporeal presence. It reconfigures the increasingly cheap technologies of the netcam and the hand-held fan into alternative world-net transmission vehicles for a gestural meeting space.

Via Neural.