I Hord Your Breath
Experience Design: Designing Presence through Breath as a Tangible Object (2025)
Product Design, Rhino, Silicon Casting, Arduino, Air Pump, CO2, Humidity & Temperature Sensor, Physical Computing, Interaction Design, Data Visualization
I Hold Your Breath is a soft, wearable system that transforms invisible breath into a tangible, shareable presence. It visualizes intimacy as a physical gesture by capturing the warmth, rhythm, and moisture of one’s breath. Grounded in research confirming that breath, when objectified, can meaningfully evoke intimacy, this poetic exchange redefines connection through the quiet energy of what we leave behind.
Breath as an Exchangeable Presence I Hold Your Breath is an interaction design project that explores breath as a sensory and emotional medium. Instead of relying on language or visual representation, it offers a way to share intimacy and presence through the body.
By capturing and reanimating a person's breath, the project transforms a fleeting biological act into a connection that can be exchanged, carried, and physically felt. Breath is often unnoticed. Despite being essential to life, it is constant, invisible, and rarely acknowledged. This project brings breath into conscious awareness and asks a quiet but intimate question: What if I could give you my breath? And what if you could carry it with you on your body? In this exchange, breath becomes more than air. It becomes a personal trace, a sensory imprint, and a living signal of someone's presence.
The system consists of two components: a breath collection device and a wearable silicone patch. When a user exhales into the soft interface, the breath's temperature, humidity, and rhythm are recorded and stored. Later, when the patch is worn on the skin, it gently expands and contracts following the stored breathing pattern. The motion is not visual or verbal. It is tactile and quiet, not seen or heard but felt through the skin.
This experience avoids conventional forms of emotional expression, such as images, texts, or voice. It does not deliver a message or carry symbolic meaning. What it offers is a subtle trace of someone's presence. It simply breathes beside you. The project is not about communication through content but about sensing another person through a shared physical rhythm. I Hold Your Breath proposes a new kind of ritual for parting moments. In times when words are not enough: a hospital visit, an airport goodbye, or a brief farewell that we often wish to leave something behind. Traditional keepsakes like photographs or letters function as representations. This project suggests something different: not a memory to look at but a sensation to inhabit—a breath that can be shared, stored, and returned through touch. Technically, the system includes a small air pump, embedded sensors, and a rechargeable battery. These components are housed in a transparent case that reveals the breath's fragility and temporality. The patch is made from medical-grade silicone that is soft, skin-safe, and responsive to touch. It conforms gently to the body and reawakens the stored breath regularly.
The design does not hide the technology but presents it clearly, highlighting the delicacy of the experience. This project does not aim to solve problems or produce market-ready products. It is a poetic and speculative proposal that invites us to rethink how we relate to one another through sensation instead of utility. Breath cannot be copied or abstracted. It can only be given, received, and physically experienced. This makes it one of our most personal and irreplaceable forms of connection. Rather than using technology to display data or transmit information, I Hold Your Breath uses it to create a space of sensory presence. It expands how we understand care, attachment, and memory—not as represented ideas but as embodied sensations. In this context, breath is not symbolic. It is a literal and intimate transfer of being. At its core, the project explores connection at its most miniature scale through the most fundamental human act. In the quiet rhythm of another person's breath, we are reminded of a relationship that is not explained but simply felt—a closeness that exists without words, a presence that continues, even in absence, a way of holding someone through the body without the need to say anything at all.
Breath-Data Visualization
Rather than using technology to display data or transmit information, I Hold Your Breath uses it to create a space of sensory presence. It expands how we understand care, attachment, and memory: not as represented ideas but as embodied sensations. In this context, breath is not symbolic. It is a literal and intimate transfer of being. At its core, the project explores connection at its most miniature scale through the most fundamental human act. In the quiet rhythm of another person's breath, we are reminded of a relationship that is not explained but simply felt—a closeness that exists without words, a presence that continues, even in absence, a way of holding someone through the body without the need to say anything at all.
