The Breath

ELEVEN35 is a virtual reality experience built around a precise duration: 11 minutes and 35 seconds, the time of the world record for static apnea. This figure is not merely symbolic; it structures the entire experience. The viewer moves through real time, simultaneously compressed and stretched, where every second counts.

Static apnea consists of remaining underwater for as long as possible, face submerged and body motionless at the surface. From the outside, nothing seems to happen. Yet beneath this apparent stillness, a physical and mental struggle unfolds. The lack of air intensifies, contractions begin, and the mind searches for strategies to endure.

ONZE35 invites the viewer to successively embody three freedivers — an amateur, a professional, and a world-record holder — in order to explore these inner strategies. The experience does not seek to document athletic performance, but rather to make perceptible the mental space each person creates to withstand the urgency of the body.

Immersion

Virtual reality makes it possible to create a sense of isolation similar to that experienced by a freediver. Once the headset is in place, the outside environment disappears. The viewer can no longer look away. They are left alone with the images and sounds that shape the experience.

The experience is designed as a gradual build-up in intensity. The opening is gentle, almost meditative, before discomfort slowly sets in. At any moment, the viewer can leave the mental visualizations and return to the space of the swimming pool. This possibility is not simply a technical mechanism: it confronts the user with the same dilemma as the freediver — how far am I willing to endure discomfort in order to go further?

The soundscape

Sound forms the invisible architecture of the project. Designed in binaural and spatialized according to the viewer’s head movements, it accompanies every phase of the experience. Breathing, heartbeats, electronic textures and inner voices create an immersive soundscape that acts almost physically on the viewer.

In certain sequences, the visual elements recede, leaving sound responsible for sustaining the tension. This approach helps convey the altered perception of the freediver as oxygen begins to run out.

Vision

The project originated from an extended immersion in the world of freediving. Beyond performance or the pursuit of records, it is the inner dimension of the practice that stands out: the way each freediver constructs a mental space in order to transform pain and the lack of air into a journey.

Far removed from the spectacular imagery of deep-sea diving, static apnea reveals an immobile confrontation with oneself. The body is constrained, while the imagination expands. The experience becomes a constant negotiation between physiological urgency and mental expansion.

Virtual reality emerges as the most appropriate medium for translating this state. No conventional screen could recreate such a profound sense of isolation and sensory engagement. The aim is to make perceptible an invisible phenomenon: the mental architecture that unfolds when the body demands to breathe.