DOTS

2015

At the pop-up exhibition of Stadslab Luchtkwaliteit at the Rotterdam Stadsmakerscongres 2015 Studio Dust presented ‘Dots’ . This project aims to visualize the invisible matter of air pollution. This is done by literally showing the measurement material of the RIVM. Fine dust in the air can be measured in different ways. This machine is giving the data of fine dust by catching the fine dust in the air for 1 hour on a piece of paper, and then measuring with light (in a specific way) how much fine dust the paper contains. This data is reflecting the amount of fine dust in the air. But the material itself tells a wonderful story! All the dots differ in grey tone. By comparing different locations and times it gives a visual insight of the air. The north of the Netherlands has almost white dots; Rotterdam ‘s-Gravendijkwal has dark grey and even black dots. These dots show also the story of human behavior.



The dots reveal that the
‘s-Gravendijkwal during the week is a busy traffic location. On the weekend it is less busy, here you see the dots are much lighter of color.

These dots show that the north of the Netherlands at the sea side, is less polluted.

Here you see the effects of the fire works at the beginning of the new year also in the north of the Netherlands.

The Tuesday after the Easter weekend starts with a big traffic Jam on the ‘s-Gravendijkwal. The dots show the first working day.

These two images on the left show the the effect of traffic on the air quality. The top shows the dots at the same time and neighborhood, however it measures a high traffic street.

The one below is a quite street just around the corner. If you compare them you see that in the top one the dots are much darker.