BREATHING ARCHITECTURE
A radical imbalance exists between the general knowledge and understanding of the visible aspects of the human body, its surface, and what happens underneath the skin.
Historical and contemporary cultures tend to expose the features on the surface of the human body: shape, colour, size, mass. Over the centuries, the external appearances have been the subject of countless artistic explorations.
Beneath the skin – a profound darkness, an enigmatic world, largely relegated to the realm of medicine. A place we glimpse only when things don’t work as they should, when confronted with malfunctions in the usual operations of our bodies.
Historical and contemporary cultures tend to expose the features on the surface of the human body: shape, colour, size, mass. Over the centuries, the external appearances have been the subject of countless artistic explorations.
Beneath the skin – a profound darkness, an enigmatic world, largely relegated to the realm of medicine. A place we glimpse only when things don’t work as they should, when confronted with malfunctions in the usual operations of our bodies.
Technological evolution, particularly the emergence of visualisation and mapping tools, expand the knowledge of the world, by allowing to gain a different point of view, a new perspective beyond a previous limit. As advanced technologies of digital reconstruction and computational modelling enable the creation of digital twins of the human body, a wide territory for artistic exploration unfolds, where it is possible to explore the human anatomies in a different way, delving into their depth to discover new forms of understanding and beauty.
Breathing Architecture seeks to reframe the inner architectures of the body as artistic subjects, by developing new visual languages and aesthetics, powered by advanced technology, expanding on the strictly medical, functional lenses through which they are often looked.
The project argues for the potential of the collaboration between artists and scientists to find new ways to advance the study of the human anatomy, by proposing an interdisciplinary collaboration between artist Filippo Nassetti, scientists at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart, mentored by the Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus, RCR Arquitectes and In4Art, part of the EU S+T+ARTS AIR Residencies program.
Specifically, the project explores the anatomy of air, the modelling and visualisation of its flow within the human body.
THE CONCEPT OF BREATHING ARCHITECTURE
The respiratory system is an incredibly complex and beautiful architecture within our bodies, and the project explored it with the guidance from scientists at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, whose research focuses on the simulation of air flows within it.
The project started with the hypothesis that the mindset of an artist, trained to imagine and work with abstract ideas such as form, structure, flow, space can be applied to deal with problems of modelling and visualising complex systems within the human body.
While a scientist views the problem through equations and mechanical physics, an artist envisions our internal bodies as spatial architectures—structures that can be navigated and explored virtually through highly realistic simulations, revealing their beauty and complexity.
The fusion of these perspectives, the combination of analytical thinking and visual imagination, can offer a unique approach to tackle major challenges in simulating anatomical systems – specifically, the architecture of the lungs. By blending art and science, this approach paves the way for something innovative — potentially leading to new insights about our bodies.
THE PROOF OF BREATHING ARCHITECTURE
Throughout the Residency, the team worked with High Performance Computing to experiment with a number of ideas, collaborating both at a technical and conceptual level.
The opportunity for a specific scientific development came up unexpectedly. During a brainstorming session, a similarity was noticed between some of the previous work of the artist and a microscope image of alveolar tissue within the lungs. The scale of these structures is so small that it cannot be scanned by existing technologies, so the team decided to attempt constructing a digital model of it, that could be used to study airflow and particles deposition within the lungs.
Eventually, the team was able to develop a novel, procedural approach to model these microscopic structures with scientific accuracy.
BSC, with a team led by scientist Beatriz Eguzkitza, is involved in a project to develop the computational modelling of the dynamics of tuberculosis. They study the transport of inhaled aerosols throughout the lung, to determine the probabilities of causing an initial infection. To this end, the modelling of the alveolar tissue achieved within Breathing Architecture is determinant for the success of the research.
The findings of the project have just been presented at a scientific conference in the 35th Parallel CFD International Conference 2024, and the team now writing a paper, which will be published in the coming months.
VISUALISATION AND ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION
The project not only contributes to scientific understanding but also creates stunning visual representations of the lung's intricate structures. By applying artistic visualization techniques to scientific data, Breathing Architecture created immersive experiences that allow viewers to explore the lung's architecture from new perspectives.
These visualizations serve a dual purpose: they aid in scientific communication and analysis while also revealing the hidden beauty of our anatomy, inviting viewers to marvel at the complexity of human biology.
CONCLUSION
The opportunity for an artist to contribute to the development of complex models of the human body appears to be very promising: what was proposed as a research agenda at the beginning of the Residency, evolved into an operational methodology, validated by a proof of concept and perspectives for further development. The Breathing Architecture team is now exploring how far this can be taken beyond the conclusion of the Residency.
The modelling approach developed in this project has potential implications for personalized medicine. By creating accurate models of lung microstructures, it may be possible to better predict how individuals respond to certain treatments or how diseases might progress, leading to more tailored and effective medical interventions.
In addition to the structures the team worked on, there are numerous other ones that could be explored collaboratively, within the respiratory system and beyond, like the dendritic architectures of the brain, or the heart and vessels within the circulatory system, to develop new forms of Body Architecture.
