The Room Continues to Breathe Without Us

2025

Linear actuator, electromagnet, metal screw, metal frame, contact microphone, microcontroller, relay, acrylic, LED light

In this work, mechanical systems persist in their steady motions, echoing the "lights-out" factories, almost fully automated, where machines operate without human presence. The installation imagines an automated space that maintains its own rhythms, cycles of movement, pause, and sound, like a body continuing to breathe in the dark. It reflects on the quiet endurance of machines, their labour unfolding unseen yet leaving traces that speak to a life beyond human control.

The installation features a vertically moving electromagnet mounted on a linear actuator. Programmed to attract and release metal screws, the system generates percussive impacts that are amplified through a hidden contact microphone. These physical sounds trigger additional sonic layers, creating a dialogue between mechanical repetition and disruption. Presented in near darkness, the work invites the audience to witness not through vision but through sound, encountering a machine that breathes and endures without us.