JUDY WOODRUFF: Now a look at a unique way
to measure air pollution.
Jeffrey Brown traveled to the San Francisco
Bay Area to meet an artist who is bringing
sound to a usually silent problem.
It is part of our regular series covering
arts and culture, Canvas.
(
JEFFREY BROWN: The ring is simple, familiar,
pleasant.
These bells look and sound just like wind
chimes, but they're not controlled by the
wind at all.
This is Mutual Air, a sound installation in
the Bay Area that measures air pollution.
ROSTEN WOO, Artist, Mutual Air: It's the most
shared resource in the world, in a sense.
You can't help but share it.
JEFFREY BROWN: Rosten Woo is a California-based
artist and designer who's currently an artist-in-residence
at San Francisco's Exploratorium.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year,
the museum has placed a heavy emphasis on
climate science and environmental issues.
Woo came up with his Mutual Air project as
a way to make measurements and data about
the air we breathe more accessible.
ROSTEN WOO: What I tried to do is kind of
give a public presence to the air.
JEFFREY BROWN: A public presence to the air?
ROSTEN WOO: Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Meaning what?
ROSTEN WOO: Well, I mean, the great cliche
about air, right, is that, you know, you can't
experience it because it's so ever-present.
It's always around.
JEFFREY BROWN: We're always experiencing it.
ROSTEN WOO: Yes.
But we don't ever have like a very direct
indicator of kind of the dynamic nature of
the changes in that air.
JEFFREY BROWN: The device uses a laser sensor
to detect particles in the air.
It picks up particulate matter that's 2.5
microns wide, known as PM-2.5, about one-30th
the width of a human hair.
But, at that size, scientists say, particles
can worsen conditions like asthma, lung and
heart disease.
The bell, sensing a high level of particulate
matter, releases a magnetic mallet that strikes
the metal pipes surrounding it.
ROSTEN WOO: You really can think of it as,
like, wind chimes for air pollution.
So, when it's going all of the time...
JEFFREY BROWN: Wind chimes for air pollution?
ROSTEN WOO: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSTEN WOO: So, when it's going off a lot,
as you might, on a very windy day, you would
have a sense, like, OK, this is, this is getting
up into maybe a not particularly great or
healthy level of PM-2.5.
JEFFREY BROWN: These are beautiful sounds.
You even made it musical, right, with the
different levels of pipe.
ROSTEN WOO: Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: Why?
Why, if it's supposed to be kind of a -- I
don't know, a warning?
ROSTEN WOO: We wanted to be in this kind of
nether-space between, like, if you heard it
a little bit, it wouldn't bother you.
You don't feel like someone's, like, poking
you.
But if you hear it a lot, you know, it actually
does become kind of annoying, in the same
way that a wind chime becomes annoying a lot.
There is one chime that's a little further
out, so it's struck less frequently.
But when it's very active, you hit this kind
of slightly more discordant note.
So, as it kind of gets into more dangerous
registers of particles, you know, it becomes
a little eerier in its tone and cast.
JEFFREY BROWN: The Bay Area, Oakland in particular,
has some of the lowest air quality in the
nation, giant ports, train tracks, crisscrossing
interstates.
Woo and the Exploratorium have begun to install
bells around the city.
They plan to have 30 up in all.
ROSTEN WOO: My hope is that it has a very
subtle and slow effect, that people will kind
of become aware of these.
Eventually, they become curious enough to
read the sign, and kind of understand what
it is, and then thereafter think about what
that means and start thinking like, oh, why
is this chime going off now in this neighborhood?
JEFFREY BROWN: Late last year, just weeks
after the installation of Mutual Air began,
the deadliest wildfires in California history
swept through the northern part of the state.
The bells went off constantly.
ROSTEN WOO: It was this time when this issue
that is often kind of very localized, suddenly,
like this much broader swathe of people cared
about it.
So the hope is maybe this project can kind
of extend that moment of interest.
JEFFREY BROWN: One site is the West Oakland
Environmental Indicators Project, an environmental
justice organization that gathers its own
data on air quality.
Margaret Gordon is the director.
For her, Mutual Air adds another tool.
MARGARET GORDON, West Oakland Environmental
Indicators: By having this data, we're able
to pinpoint to the city, the state, the county
where they need to advocate to do more emission-reduction
planning, such as making the port go totally
electrified, bring electrified trains, the
cranes, the trucks.
So those are the type of things, having that
data, we're able to campaign and advocate
for it.
JEFFREY BROWN: I asked Rosten Woo where the
art comes in and meets advocacy.
ROSTEN WOO: I think it kind of falls into
the catchment of art, because it doesn't fit
very neatly into other categories.
It's not strictly a public health program.
It's not strictly a political project.
JEFFREY BROWN: But is it a political act in
some ways?
ROSTEN WOO: I don't want to oversell it and
say, like, you know, this is real political
action.
I think having an awareness and a new knowledge
of how your urban environment is shaped does
engender politics, does kind of lead you then
to have questions about, like, well, why is
this so?
JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Jeffrey Brown in the San Francisco Bay Area.
