In Marshmallow Laser Feast: Works of Nature, the Evolver: Deep Listening Meditation attunes audiences to the rhythm that not only underpins the exhibition but all life on earth. Narrated by Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, the meditation was crafted by Marshmallow Laser Feast in collaboration with award-winning poet Daisy Lafarge.
The meditation draws on the science and spirituality of resonance breathing. From Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Kundalini Yoga to Indigenous American and African cultures, sacred prayers, chants and mantras attune practitioners to the sublime. Across all cultures, these sacred techniques involve controlled breathing and take approximately six seconds to recite. They’re ancient traditions that form the basis of mindfulness, which often features meditations of controlled inhaling and exhaling for five to six seconds each.
In science, this is called resonance breathing. Growing research shows that achieving this flow lowers the body into a state of coherence, maximising the efficiency of our heart, circulation and nervous system. By adopting this essential and powerful tool of the human body, we can relieve stress, build resilience and harmonise ourselves with the natural world.
Deep Listening Meditation transcript
From the forest's exhale to your body's inhale, tides of air flow through time and space, an enveloping oceanic medium, shaping us as moments of matter.
Breathing in this ocean we call air, oxygenated by the forest's outbreath, rushes in at the mouth and nose, a wind piped downwards through rivers and tributaries, a lattice of ever-branching paths where the lungs expand like a swollen river to winnow oxygen from your breath.
One river meets another.
Oxygen disperses into the blood and the exhalation of plant life flows through the streams, channelling blood to your heart.
These currents flow to the farthest reaches of the body, where each cell undergoes respiration... Oxygen and sugars both produced by plants, combine there, to become your life force, an ancient reaction releasing energy from sugars, enabling you to breathe and live.
Breathing out, the tides within us are also outside us in a harmony of opposites. Our outbreath of carbon dioxide becomes the plant's breath in...
We are all environments, walking oceans teeming with life, united by an unending rhythm that blurs the boundaries between all breathing bodies and submerges us in torrents of being.
Credits
Narrated by: Cate Blanchett
Executive Producers: Edward R. Pressman & Terrence Malick
Executive Producers: Cate Blanchett, Coco Francini, Andrew Upton, Nicole Shanahan
Producers: Sam Pressman, Antoine Cayrol
Directed by Marshmallow Laser Feast
An Atlas V, Pressman Film and Marshmallow Laser Feast Production
In association with Dirty Films
Supported by Nicole Shanahan & Bia-Echo Foundation
Made in collaboration With Natan Sinigaglia
Key scientific collaborator: The Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS
This is a clip from the Immersive Exhibitions Masterclass, recorded on 27 November 2023 at ACMI. Visit the Stories & Ideas section of this website to view the full talk.
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