More about Rose Breathing

Contributor

Andrea Ackerman's Rose Breathing takes the flower fetish to a whole new level.


We are all familiar with Georgia O’ Keeffe’s floral close-ups (like Black Iris) that invoke genital mysteries in one’s mind, and Andrea Ackerman’s Rose Breathing would’ve definitely made Georgia O. queef. Ackerman just takes the sensual, erotic rose to a whole other dimension.


The video shows us a 3-D animated rose as it gently flutters open and closed, accompanied by a really deep breathing soundtrack. The rose inhales and exhales along with the audio like an isolated bodily organ. The veiny pink petals look fleshy, and their movements look like internal functions of the body.


Every time the flower blooms it seems to beckon towards the external, drawing the viewer into its exposed, blushing abyss. It’s all very tingly and goosebump-y... getting you riled up for the ultimate floral climax. In that sense, it's just as arousing as it is calming.


One can easily draw parallels to the erogenous, but this respiratory rose also leads one to consider how frail and susceptible a rose can be, even as such a powerful and popular symbol. The longer you listen to the air being drawn in and pushed out, the more it sounds like heaving -- desperate grabs at life itself. Even the title personifies the flower and does away with the rose as an object. It now lives and breathes like any human being.