As my freediving instructor gently held my head beneath the water, she whispered to me softly: YOUR URGE TO BREATHE IS A LIE

I went from being able to hold my breath for 20 seconds to 2 and 1/2 minutes in the first day of training. If my inherent bio(psycho)physical capacities for breathing - something I do everyday - are so far beyond what I imagined, what else is possible with these body-minds we have? Just as they are, before any implants, devices or augmentations.

YOUR URGE TO BREATHE IS A LIE follows scientists, dancers, engineers, synchronized swimmers and the artist-as-freediver in their attempt to reclaim transhumanism from the singularists and evolve the human species based on the model organism of the cephalopod. Humans train for wet survival by evolving the capacities and sensitivities of the cephalopod (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) including SEEING WITH THE SKIN, SHAPESHIFTING, and DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE.

More than simply a document of training, the work aims to transcend the primacy of visual and auditory sensation in audiences’ experience of moving-image, and attempt to redirect and instigate somatic, corporeal sensation directly in the audience’s physical bodies.

YOUR URGE TO BREATHE IS A LIE is also an invitation to join the movement. Welcome to our wet, soft and squishy future. The video installation is always accompanied by free to take training-manual-as-poster Welcome to Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution, so you can train at home.

Related Works

Welcome to the Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution (Drawing Series)
Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution (Live Training Workshops)
TCE Cosmology (Wallpaper Installation)
Ever Wetter (Risograph Series)
Leaking, Seeping, Seething (Watercolor Series)

Collections

Frac Bretagne - Site du Fonds régional d'art contemporain

Exhibitions

45 salón nacional de artistas | el revés de la trama | Bogotá, Colombia
NADA - New Art Dealers Association Invitational  | Chicago, USA
Tomorrow is Already Here  | Headlands Center for the Arts  | San Francisco, USA
Animal Internet | KHODYNKA  | Moscow, Russia
Cloud Edge  | Solyanka Ground  | Moscow, Russia
Chaos and Cosmos  | International Media Art Festival CYFEST-13  | Saint Petersburg, Russia
Artificial History  | Darwin Museum  | Moscow, Russia
NeueHouse Frieze In Focus: Time Travel for Adaptation  | Frieze LA |  Los Angeles, USA
MYR | McEvoy Foundation, San Francisco, USA
At the Edges: Morphoses  | Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts  | Leipzig, Germany
Molecular Minds // Monstrous Matters  | Akademie Schloss Solitude  | Germany

Credits

A WORK BY
Miriam Simun

CHOREOGRAPHER
luciana achugar

PRODUCER
Sam Baumel

SOUND DESIGN
Juan Necochea

UNDERWATER CHOREOGRAPHER
Paola Tirados

UNDERWATER CAMERA
Jendra Jarnagin

CAMERA
Josh Herzog
Manuel Molina Martagon
Stergios Dinopoulos
Dillon Buss
Miriam Simun

SWIMMERS
Valentina Dieujuste
Zoe Frost
Kirsten May
Daria Vasilchenko

DANCERS
luciana achugar
Alexi Choueiri
Jad A Elmourad
Daniel Estandian
Fana Fraser
Mary Gray
Nikima Jagudajev
Neriman Beste Kaygisiz
Michael Mahalchick
Jacqueline M Montante
William Robinson
Lily Bo Shapiro
Sara M Sime
Miriam Simun

VOICES
luciana achugar
Sonia Dijkstra
Leah Mallozzi
Rebecca Mallozzi
Miriam Simun

OCTOPUSES
Giant Pacitic Octopus (Anna) from the New England Aquarium
Larger Pacific Striped Octopus from the California Academy of Sciences
Unknown Octopus from the Lamu Archipelago
Big Fin Squid from the Gulf of Mexico
Red Squid from the Pacific Ocean
Vampire Squid from the Indian Ocean
Warty Octopus from the Trinidad Mud Volcano
Unknown Octopuses from the Pacific Ocean
Cockatoo Squid from the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
Flapjack Octopus from the Pacific Ocean
Unknown Octopus from the Pacific Ocean
Unknown Octopus from the Pacific Ocean
Vampire Squid from the Revillagigedo Archipelago Expedition
Octopus Pacificus from the Pacific Ocean
Dumbo Octopus from the Winward Passage

DIVER
Miriam Simun

COSTUME DESIGNER
Andrea Lauer

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Marina Fernandez

UNDERWATER CHOREOGRAPHY SUPERVISOR
Judith Elizah De Ungria

UNDERWATER CAMERA ASSISTANT
Chris Ritter

UNDERWATER GAFFER
Autumn Moran

CAMERA ASSISTANTS
Jinshuo Zhang
Dan Nguyen

GAFFER
Linda Wu

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Miriam Schulz
Michael Edgecumbe
Steph Strauss
Ben Heintz

LOCATION
Studio 153

MUSIC

“Gesang” by Igor Tkachenko
Performed by Piano Match (Igor Tkachenko and Jakov Jakoulov)
Recorded live 2009 Jordan Hall Boston

“Fucking Around” by Daniel Estandian
Recorded live 2018 Pleasant Studios Cambridge

Fijiri song no. 5, by Abdulla Ahmed

“A la Prokofiev”
Performed by Piano Match (Igor Tkachenko and Jakov Jakoulov)
Recorded live 2009 Jordan Hall Boston

Fijiri song no. 6, by Abdulla Ahmed

“NOTHING (but the textures of my body)” by Nicole L’Huillier

Fijiri song no. 8, by Ali Khalid

“SOMETHING (mindscapes)” by Nicole L’Huillier

Improvisation on themes by
J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven and Gounot
Performed by Piano Match (Igor Tkachenko and Jakov Jakoulov)
Recorded live 2009 Jordan Hall Boston

ADDITIONAL DEEP SEA FOOTAGE PROVIDED BY
Ocean Exploration Trust, Nautilus Live

SCRIPT
Miriam Simun
(including quotes from)

Astrida Neimanis, 2017. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology

and

Peter Godfrey-Smith, 2016. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness