Technology A — Pratt Grad ComD

Project Description

The Weight of Air is a research-driven data-visualization project that examines air as an unevenly distributed social and environmental infrastructure within contemporary cities. Rather than treating air quality as a neutral metric, the project reframes air as a structural condition shaped by economic, spatial, and institutional forces, and experienced differently across populations. The project translates environmental indicators into a dynamic visual system. Urban silhouettes provide a spatial framework, while layers of haze, particulate textures, and atmospheric motion encode pollution intensity and uncertainty. Data points are algorithmically distributed and dynamically adjusted through collision-avoidance processes, modeling how individuals and communities are positioned within unequal systems of exposure. Methodologically, the project approaches visualization as a form of critical inquiry rather than objective representation alone. By emphasizing spatial constraints and relational patterns, it foregrounds disparities often obscured by aggregated statistics. Air is presented not only as a measurable environmental variable, but as an experiential load—one that reflects structural inequality embedded in urban systems. Through interaction, comparison, and spatial exploration, The Weight of Air invites users to reconsider air as a shared public resource whose burdens are unevenly carried, and positions data visualization as a medium for making invisible infrastructures perceptible.

Credits

This code generated by Gemini at my direction/ NYC data

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The Weight of Air

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by Xiongyue Yu

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by Xiongyue Yu

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