Sokolowsko Poland (2017)

Robert Bean and Barbara Lounder




-  01 Sokolowsko Annotated Walk




-  02 Sokolowsko Installation





-  03 Sokolowsko Event Score







Being-in-the-Breathable: an annotated walk

Robert Bean and Barbara Lounder,
2017 International Sokołowsko Festival of Ephemeral Art

Robert Bean and Barbara Lounder present an annotated walk about breathing, the phenomenology of weather and the politics of climate change. This interactive artwork responds to the contingencies of the Sokołowsko sanatorium as a site of healing and conflict. Participants consider the internal experience of breathing and the haptic sensation of weather through actions that utilize movement, performance, objects and sound. Allegorical references to the history of breathing, atmosphere, weather, and healing are incorporated into the collective experience of being at the sanatorium. We adapt contemporary strategies of psychogeography for this project. Psychogeography, theorized by Guy Debord in 1955, is the spatial and literary practice of the Situationist International for mapping emotional, psychological and political meanings of urban spaces.

We begin from the position that walking is a creative medium and methodology. The history and contemporary practice of walking assert that it is a means to generate thought and knowledge through embodied experience. An active awareness of walking and mobility as a diverse and creative act cultivates an opportunity to consider a deeper comprehension of embodiment, environment and space. Walking is a sensorial experience; the senses provide both distil and proximal relationships to the world that inform our knowledge and understanding of place. The ubiquity of technologically mediated space affects the experience of knowledge generation gained through walking. As pedestrians we are networked into multimodal sensorial experiences while walking and interacting with mobile devices.

Being-in-the-Breathable is a term that the author Peter Sloterdijk uses to describe how the atmosphere and environment were made explicit by the use of gas warfare during the first and second world wars. The atmosphere, the last common space that people share, lost its innocence when it was used as an environmental weapon.


Works in the Exhibition:
1. Tuberculosis (2017) 44”x34”
2. "Bird in an Air Pump", Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768 32”x24”
3. Atmosphere and Circular Song (2017) 32”x32”
4. Iodine Lublin, 1986 (2017) 26”x44”
5. Sarin Molecule (2017) 44”x30” 6. Majdanek, 1988 (2017) 44”x55”



Robert Bean @2020