Corporeal Time, Cosmic Breath
In her multi-channel video-audio installation Breathing Together (Measuring the Cosmos), Neli Ružić creates an immersive space that intertwines the individual and collective experience of breathing. Essentially, the work features breath marks on a glass surface that gradually fade away – a poignant reminder of the transience and ephemerality of human presence. This materialisation of the intangible – the physical imprint of breath – also serves as a visual metaphor for interconnectedness, the flow and circulation of air that inextricably binds us all together.
The work’s semantic layer exposes the complex relationship between biological and cosmic time. Breath, both rhythmic and vital, contrasts with the accelerated temporality of contemporary society, driven by the imperatives of productivity and capitalist acceleration. Neli Ružić’s piece reminds us that breathing is not only a fundamental life-sustaining act but also a shared basis for human existence – an act that can be jeopardised, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] In this sense, the installation becomes a space of corespiration – as the artist herself notes, referencing a line from Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s seminal text Breathing: Chaos and Poetry – reflecting both the fragility and the strength of collective existence.[2]
It should be noted that time is not treated here as a measurable category, but as a speculative concept, with Ružić deconstructing the anthropocentric notion of linearity. Rather than a stable, clearly defined understanding of time, the installation suggests a more fluid and unstable temporal framework, similar to our conception of the cosmos. In this context, humans are removed from an anthropocentric view of time and confronted with its non-linear, immeasurable dimension, which could perhaps be imagined as a spiral, a rhythmic repetition and intertwining of different flows.
At the same time, Neli Ružić’s work raises the issue of the various divisions of time – from its daily economic commodification to leisure as a space of untapped potential. The installation thus subtly references the radical ideas of the Situationist International, which rejected the instrumentalization of time through work and called for liberation from its productive constraints. In this context, Breathing Together (Measuring the Cosmos) explores the opposition between work time – structured, controlled, and commodified – and the time of being, which cannot be easily measured or reduced to economic logic. The artist’s installation thus not only addresses the rhythmic nature of breathing as a biological necessity but also as a potential act of resistance to acceleration, economic control, and the exploitation of time.
On a physical level, the work is structured as a multi-channel installation with seven screens positioned on black pedestals in a dimly lit gallery space. The screens show video recordings of the exhalations of around sixty individuals, each accompanied by a sound composition uniquely adapted by Carole Chargueron, further enhancing the experience of a choral polyphony.[3] This creates a spatial impression of complex breathing polyphony, where the audio and visual elements intertwine, emphasising the concept of interconnectedness within the invisible space of air and time exchange.
To make the experience of the work even more immersive, the gallery floor is lined with black carpeting. This approach, reminiscent of the experimental exhibition procedures used by Surrealist artists and cultural workers, as well as Neo-avant-garde artistic practices, not only impacts the acoustics of the space but also alters its physical appearance, offering a different perception of walking, sensation, and movement through the installation. The robust walls of the late antique architecture engage in a constant dialogue with the elusiveness and fluidity of the work, highlighting the tension between monumental permanence and the ephemeral moment.
The installation gains an added layer of complexity through the textual work No longer, not yet, which appears within the exhibition space – and actually serves as the exhibition’s title, reflecting Neli Ružić’s characteristic strategy, where text acts as a discursive counterpoint to the visual and sound elements. In this instance, Ružić draws on Giorgio Agamben’s arguments from his essay What Is the Contemporary?, in which he proposes, among other things, that a truly contemporary individual does not fully align with one’s time nor obediently conforms to it.[4] According to Agamben, it is precisely through anachronism and disjunction that a deeper understanding of the present is possible, as this temporal dissonance allows for a clearer perception of one’s era, not only as something we participate in, but also as something we can critically examine. This somewhat disruptive textual form in the exhibition evokes a liminal space between the past and the future, pointing to the fluidity of transitions and the uncertainty of the present moment. Its semantic tension arises from the paradoxical intersection of endings and beginnings, stillness and movement, where time is seen not as a linear progression, but as a non-linear, open process that continually eludes fixation.
Positioned high on the wall within the exhibition, the text – in the form of a lightbox made from black aluminium with illuminated letters – not only influences the internal compactness of the installation Breathing Together (Measuring the Cosmos), but also destabilises conventional modes of perception: it places the observer in a state of oscillation between what has passed and what is yet to come, without providing a secure grounding in the present moment. In fact, the text, like a riddle, hints at the present but, by leaving it unspoken, ultimately suppresses it. Moreover, this intervention creates a discontinuity in the experience of the work, allowing space for further meanings and critical reflection of time as an aporia – something that both is and isn’t, that has passed yet still persists. In this way, No longer, not yet serves as both a textual element and a conceptual disruption within the installation, prompting a deeper examination of the structure of time, its fragmentation, and our perception of transitions between ontological states.
Neli Ružić’s exhibition is staged in the northeast tower of Diocletian’s Palace, a space imbued with exceptional historical and material longevity. The robust walls of the late antique architecture, witnesses to centuries of transformation, contrast with the transient nature of the work, where the recording of exhalations – a brief physical process of heat emission – and the appearance of dust particles in their visually striking constellations, evoke the concept of the cosmos as an incomprehensibly vast and timeless space. In this juxtaposition of the monumental and the ephemeral, the enduring and the fleeting, a multi-layered reflection on time, matter, and human presence in the infinite flow is revealed.
Ultimately, Neli Ružić’s exhibition is not just a visual and auditory experience, but a poetic exploration of life’s rhythms, temporal structures, and our inherent interdependence and collaboration. Through her work, Ružić successfully intertwines the personal and universal dimension of breathing – physiological, political, and existential – while questioning what it truly means to be together in space and time.
Dalibor Prančević
[1] Individual breaths were recorded in 2021 during the pandemic crisis at Darko Škrobonja’s studio in Split, adhering to the prescribed safety conditions and protective measures.
[2] “Singular respiration is concatenated with others’ breathings, and this corespiration we name ‘society.’ Society is the dimension in which singular durations are rearranged in a shared time-frame.” Franco ”Bifo” Berardi: Breathing. Chaos and Poetry, 2019, p. 25.
[3] The sound component of the work was created in collaboration with Carole Chargueron, a French composer and sound artist who has been living and working in Mexico City since the late 1990s, where she recorded the breaths of sixty different individuals, and their sound recordings were integrated into the video work in January and February 2023.
[4] Giorgio Agamben: “What Is the Contemporary?,” in: What Is an Aparatus? And Other Essays, 2009, pp. 39–55.
Neli Ružić (Split Croatia 1966) is a multimedia artist who explores the perception of time and various aspects of temporality in relation to historical narratives, the intersectionality of personal and collective memory, and migrations. Her artistic practice spans a diverse range of mediums and forms, encompassing interventions in public spaces, installations, video installations, and process-based works that intricately weave archival and documentary practices. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many exhibitions, projects, and festivals in Croatia and the region, Europe, Canada, the USA and Latin America. Among others: BIENALSUR (Uruguay and Argentina) and OSTRALE Biennale O21 (Dresden, Germany) as well as the exhibition Body and Territory, Cross-Border Dialogues at the Kunsthaus, Graz. Ružić has been awarded a number of awards and grants including Grand Prix 29th Slavonian Biennial (2024), Slobodna Dalmacija Annual Art Award Jure Kaštelan, Split (2024); Signes de Nuit award at the 16th Festival International de Cinema, Paris (2018); the Second award T-HTnagrada@msu.hr, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2016) and the Mediterranean Youth Biennale Award, Modern Gallery in Rijeka (1993). As a fellow of CEC ArtsLink resides at Headlands Centre for the Arts, Sausalito, California, USA (1996). Her works are part of the private and public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Split, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Marino Cettina Gallery in Umag, and Canal Mediateca CaixaForum in Barcelona.
Ružić graduated in painting from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade and holds a master’s degree from the Facultad de Artes, UAEM, Mexico. During her master’s studies, she was a scholarship holder of the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology – Conacyt. From 2003 to 2012, she taught at ENPEG La Esmeralda, Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) in Mexico City. After returning to Croatia, she taught at the School of Fine Arts in Split, where in 2014, she conceptualised and led the School Gallery until 2018. She is full professor at the Painting Department of the Arts Academy, University of Split.