Turning Air Pollution Into Awareness Art

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Image created by the Digioxide, courtesy of Dmitry Morozov: http://vtol.cc/

It's not often you put pollution and beautiful in the same sentence. It's practically unheard of, in fact. But if you throw 'public awareness' in the mix then you're taken to a whole new level of techno-cool, which is the case with Dmitry Morozov's Digioxide.

Author Jo Wilkinson, 07.30.14

It’s not often you put pollution and beautiful in the same sentence. It’s practically unheard of, in fact. But if you throw ‘public awareness’ in the mix then you’re taken to a whole new level of techno-cool, which is the case with Dmitry Morozov’s Digioxide.

Dmitry is a media-artist living in Moscow. His contraption, the Digioxide, sniffs out the air pollution many of us live and breathe every day, and then turns it into art. How, exactly? It has sensors that measure various harmful gases (carbon dioxide and methane, for example) in the air. This data is then algorithmically transformed into colours and shapes, which are printed out on the spot.

What’s especially great about the digioxide is it’s transportable, and the pictures transferable. You could sniff and print on the street, and then give the resulting artwork to a passer-by as a reminder of what we all-so-readily ignore.

More than 2 million people lose their lives to poor air quality every year, and car emissions in the city are a major contributor.  Being aware of these toxic gases around us is pretty much the aim of Dmitry’s project: to artistically raise public awareness of environmental pollution.

Want to see more? Check out Dmitry’s website. He’s also created a sound controller that uses tattoo as a music score, and a sound robot that knows how to keep up with our latest social media trends.

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Air Pollution

The term “air pollution” conjures up a broad array of images – from hazy smog to acid rain and buildings stained from exhaust fumes. Equally broad are its causes and negative effects on human and environmental health. In fact, the vast majority the world’s population is adversely affected by air pollution, perhaps without even realizing it. The good news is, since most air pollution is caused by human activity, it's a problem that all of us can do something about.