In Osmose, breathing is being used in a very specific way, not only for the navigational aspects but also to help people reconnect to the body which puts them in a certain state of mind. This in turn affects how they interact. Osmose is based on getting people into the state where they let go of the urge to be in control. Most interactive technology is about being in control. When you’re playing games, you’re being rewarded for your skill in being in control, your quick reflexes.
This feeling of “ecstasy,” as Davies calls it, is central to this work and indicative of her commitment to challenging the limits, and rules of engagement that are so much a part of interactive technologies. Osmose, taken from the word osmosis, the biological process involving passage from one side of a membrane to another, is exactly that: a corporeal and temporal passage to another state of being where users are aware of themselves and able to upset their own personal “baggage” filled with Cartesian dualisms. The personal experience of the work is a journey through phobias and individual limitations.
Angela Plohman