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

空气质素指数（aqi）是监测不同地理区域特定空气污染物（气体及/或颗粒物质）的仪器。国家认可的空气质量指数通过有效地反映环境对决策者和公民是安全还是不安全，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》，2013年）。虽然这种代表性的力量可能使特定的污染物可见（Barry 2001, 169），但它不能说明“空气质量”最终表示的身体和空气物质之间的多样性和动态关系（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AQIs （Barry 2001, 158; Choy 2012, 32; also Bryant 2014）。首先，通过与空气质量分析师和批判性或思探性参与的设计师（Dunne and Raby 2013）进行的多地点人种学田野调查，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，我将通过一种我称之为“空气景观”的具体实践来发展超越可索引表征的空气污染的描述。空气观测旨在动员“超越代表性”的方式（Lorimer 2005）来关注空气污染，这种方式引发了一种与问题规模相适应的情感紧迫性2，这是数字指数无法做到的。毕竟，“空气质量”只是一个概念，因为它指的是对生活的影响，而不仅仅是固定地点特定污染物的浓度。换句话说，“空气质量”不是空气固有的抽象属性，而是不同呼吸者与动态污染物之间的复杂关系（Born and Barry 2010, 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).