Visible Air

When invisible air becomes too dangerous to breathe

Air is polluted. Kyoto, Japan, is currently a mildly polluted area. Tokyo, on the other hand, is almost dangerously polluted. The growing world population and the economical growth of Japan make it very likely for Kyoto to transform into such a big city as Tokyo — with dangerously polluted air. In China, this is the reason that people wear face masks. This was also the first thing we saw when arriving in Japan: people wearing face masks. However, the Japanese wear them in order to prevent the spreading of diseases and bacterias. Looking at the near future, wearing a face mask for polluted air is more than likely to be the main reason to wear one. Kyoto is a huge city with a gargantuan invisible network of air: air consumed by millions of people, every day, every second. But what if the cities become so polluted that mankind needs our invisible air network to become visible in order to live? In this article: our perception of a dystopian future scenario in which our current air network needs to become visible in order for people to breathe.

So what if our air becomes hazardous? How do we breathe? With ‘Visible Air’ we want to draw attention to this serious problem. Transforming our current invisible air network into a visible one might be the only possibility for people in the future to breathe. A tubing system transports clean air to all urban environments so that people living in the city have access to clean air. But how does this work if people always need to be connected to this network? Imagine you have to connect yourself to a network of tubes, everywhere you go.

When you wake up, you need air. How do you eat? Walking to work, connected to the system of tubes. In the subway, at work. A nice evening with friends: hooked on to the air network. You need to breathe, so you need clean air.

So, we want and we need clean air, but have you thought about this? Who is going to pay for your clean air? What if you can’t afford it? And even if you can, do you always want to be hooked on to a system of tubes, to walk in perfectly straight lines and to have a heavy mask on your face 24/7? If this is not the case, wake up. We need a drastic change in our behavior in order to prevent this dystopian future from happening.

Written by Karel Aarts, Lisa Brand, Daan Heijsters, Jessie Lauret, Verindi Vekemans (TU/e)