Show Off Your City’s Pollution Data in Style

Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick's wearable data objects, based on open data from air quality sensors, visualize the burden pollution places on us

Emma Hutchings  - 30 july 2015
 
Data artists Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick created a collection of necklaces and glasses that communicate the physical burden air pollution places on people’s bodies. Air Transformed are wearable data objects that look decorative but are entirely based on open data from air quality sensors in Sheffield.

This U.K. city is known for its steelmaking heritage and notorious for its poor air quality.



The objects were commissioned by Better With Data, the Sheffield wing of the Open Data Institute, as part of their AirQuality+ project. Posavec designed the pieces, while Quick carried out the data research and analysis.



Touching Air comprises three necklaces that each represents a week’s worth of data, divided into six-hour periods. These are depicted as perspex segments, which vary in size and texture. The large and spiky segments signify that there were more particulates in the air at that time. The chosen weeks of data showed interesting patterns in the air pollution.





The necklaces enable their wearer to feel how the air quality in Sheffield improved and deteriorated during the week. Dangerous particulate levels could hurt them if they ran their finger over the segments.



Seeing Air comprises three pairs of glasses, which show the levels of air pollution on different days. They feature perspex lenses representing a different pollutant: brown for nitrogen dioxide, blue for small particulates, and green for large particulates. Patterns on the lenses indicate the levels of pollutant, with larger patterns representing higher levels. These cloud the wearer’s vision, alluding to the fact that pollutants in the air could cause hazy views.



The glasses enable their wearer to see the difference in air quality in Sheffield on different days of the year. The chosen days featured extremes of the air quality range in the city, with a day of high NO2, a day of high particulates, and a day of relatively clean air.