An ontology of 'air quality' from numerical indices to embodied practices

空气质量指数（AQI）是用于监测和直观绘制地理区域特定空气污染物（气体和/或颗粒物）的设备。国家认可的空气质量指数通过有效地向决策者和公民表明环境是安全的还是不安全的，为公共卫生研究、政策和生活方式行为提供信息（全球环境评估协会，2013年）。虽然这种代表性的力量可以使特定的污染物可见（巴里2001年，169），它不能说话的多样化和动态的关系，机构和空中的问题，“空气质量”最终表示（Choy 2012）。这个跨学科的研究项目将研究如何通过不同的社会和技术手段验证和可视化空气质量指数（巴里，2001，第158页; Choy，2012，第32页;另见Bryant，2014）。首先，通过与空气质量分析师和批判性或投机性参与设计师的多地点人种学实地考察（Dunne和Raby 2013），我将描绘AQI生产的形成阶段，以表明设计思维或社区咨询可以干预的地方。其次，我将通过我称之为“空中景观”的具体实践，发展超越可索引表示的空气污染帐户。Airscaping的目的是动员“超过代表性”的模式（Lorimer 2005）来关注空气污染，以数字指数无法达到的方式唤起与问题规模相适应的情感紧迫感。毕竟，“空气质量”只是一个概念，因为它指的是对生活的影响，而不仅仅是特定污染物在固定位置的浓度。换句话说，“空气质量”不是空气中固有的抽象属性，而是不同呼吸者和动态污染物之间的复杂关系（Born和巴里，2010年，114）。

Air Quality Indices (AQIs) are devices for monitoring and visually mapping specific airborne pollutants (gases and/or particulate matter) across geographic zones. State-endorsed AQIs inform public health research, policies and lifestyle behaviours by effectively representing environments as either safe or unsafe to both decision-makers and citizens (GLA 2013). While this representational force may render specific pollutants visible (Barry 2001, 169), it cannot speak to the diverse and dynamic relationships between bodies and aerial matter that 'air quality' ultimately denotes (Choy 2012).This interdisciplinary research project will examine how AQIs are both validated and visualised through diverse social and technical means (Barry 2001, 158; Choy 2012, 32; also Bryant 2014). First, via multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with air quality analysts and critically or speculatively engaged designers (Dunne and Raby 2013), I will delineate the formative stages in the production of an AQI to indicate where design thinking or community consultation could intervene. Second, I will then develop accounts of air pollution that transcend indexable representation through an embodied practice of what I term 'airscaping'. Airscaping is intended to mobilise 'more-than-representational' modalities (Lorimer 2005) for paying heed to air pollution that invoke an affective urgency befitting the scale of the problem2 in ways that numerical indices cannot. After all, 'air quality' only exists as a concept because it refers to an impact on life, not just to the concentrations of specific pollutants at a fixed location. In other words, 'air quality' is not an abstract property that inheres in air, but a complex relationship between diverse breathers and dynamic pollutants (Born and Barry 2010, 114).