Your Urge to Breathe is a Lie (excerpt)

 OBJECTIVE

Your Urge to Breathe is a Lie is a MIT Media Lab post-graduate thesis project conceived by Miriam Simun that imagines how humans may adapt attributes of the cephalopod to combat rising sea levels.

Miriam’s SciFi vision called for the production of a dance film both on land and in water.

PUTTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER

In conjunction with choreographer, Luciana Achugar, and Director of Photography, Jendra Jarnagin, we assembled a team of synchronised swimmers, modern dancers and an ambitious production crew.

We shot underwater inside a swimming pool, speckled with atmospheric fragments and lit from the outside to make it look like the ocean. Dancers tromped through the shores of the East River with tongues out like tentacles.

FINAL PRODUCT

The dance film was generously supported by a grant from the MIT Media Lab and has been installed as part of gallery exhibitions from Boston to Brazil.