100 BREATHS PER MINUTE

© 2011, Duration: 1 minute, sound installation compact disc (black 45rpm vinyl single look-a-like) CD player courtesy of Muji.
Exhibited: 2011 'Blank Media Title Art Prize', Manchester; 2014 Waterside Arts Centre 'Open Exhibition', Manchester; 2018 'Dull' Fringe Arts Festival, Bath.

 

What could be duller than nothing? But of course, silence is not nothing – 100 Breaths Per Minute is a minute long and is made up of one hundred breaths. The breaths were the inhalations of announcers on BBC Radio 4, taken just before they began to introduce the next programme.

 

There is a golden rule on the radio: The airwaves must never fall silent! This is in case someone spinning the tuning dial thinks there is nothing on – And as has already been stated, there is no such thing as nothing.