Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Citizen Science meets art in San Francisco
Last weekend, an artist-run organization called Southern Exposure (SoEx) held a hands-on workshop in San Francisco that invited people to "[j]oin a team of researchers, artists, and practitioners in a citizen based participatory field study." Participants took part in "collecting, gathering, and analyzing the urban environment in [the city] using a collection of mobile, networked sensors called sensr: citizen science * air quality. The various sensors measure CO (Carbon Monoxide), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), ozone, sulfur dioxide, moisture, uv, light, decible, and temperature."
Organizers explained that the data would be downloaded and "discussed in a brainstorm session asking what was discovered, and exploring how we would like to see this information used or changed to make a better city. Ultimately, Common Sense senses our natural environment and empowers collective action through everyday grassroots citizen science across blocks, neighborhoods, cities, and nations."
Common Sense (see image) is a project of workshop leader Vapor.
Vapor is a survey of new art, architecture and design that takes our declining air quality as the subject matter, medium and metaphor for creative work. Often inspired by forms of activism, the works react to the sources of climate change through the use of technologies – sensors, databases, and communications equipment – that are only recently accessible outside a lab. . . .
Vapor proposes new ways of modeling, testing and finding solutions to the problems of air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. . . .
Many projects in this exhibition have an off-site component so . . . [visitors are encouraged] to stop by the gallery to check out a bicycle as part of Futurefarmers Public Cycle, a Preemptive Media AIR device to measure the CO in the area, or one of Natalie Jeremijenko's Clear Skies mask to monitor the real effects of pollution [they] move through the city.
For more details about these projects, visit the Vapor website. The exhibit runs through May 3, 2008. I think I might organize a Health Horizons field trip to check it out.