Ode to Helplessness – The Inability to Breathe In 1.0 is part of a diptych from a larger multichannel installation that explores the absurdity of human struggle and the psychological weight of powerlessness. The work is composed using a golden ratio split-screen: the upper half shows a close-up of a woman standing before the raw, unyielding surface of a quarry wall; the lower half presents a continuous drive along a winding road. Confronted with the immensity of the stone backdrop, the woman unleashes a scream—raw, primal, and unresolved. Her action is a direct emotional outburst against the unchangeable, a gesture both cathartic and futile.

Paired with its counterpart, The Inability to Breathe In 2.0, where a man responds with a meditative “om,” the video positions these reactions as mirrored yet contrasting attempts to process existential pressure. The looping visuals and elemental setting underline the absence of resolution. Here, breath itself becomes symbolic—a denied or impossible act—echoing a deeper sense of suffocation and stasis in the face of life’s incomprehensible structures.