Artificial Respiration: On Life, Environment, and Machine

Hoff, Shannon. “Artificial Respiration: On Life, Environment, and Machine.” In Wood: a Compendium of the Blackwood Gallery’s Exhibitions and Projects in 2009, pp. 78-87. Ed. Christof Migone. Toronto: C. J. Graphics, 2011.

This essay reflects on two exhibitions hosted by the Blackwood Art Gallery in 2009—“Fall In” and “Fall Out.” In interaction with the artworks, it explores the ways in which the human being is not simply itself, circumscribed by its physical and psychological boundaries, but is rather an exchange between inside and outside, between “itself” and its prosthetic extensions—family, environment, technology, other people, laws, customs, and language.