Title: Cocíclo
Artist(s): Alexandre Castonguay
Source: TBC
Sense(s): Sound
Issue(s): Carbon monoxide pollution
Cocíclo is a device that measures carbon monoxide concentrations in urban environments. This device consists of various entities, such as a wearable that geolocates the user wearing the device, while also alerting the user with sound beeps depending on concentrations of CO. Additionally there is a ‘Cocíclo marker’ which is a ‘chalk-marking tool that inscribes the CO variations directly on the sidewalks or streets of the city’.1 What is a key point for this project is in the observation that ‘The traditional visualization tools are not adequate for citizen involvement: We often witness data heatmaps of pollutants within our cities but they feel distant since they are not related to our actual experiences. Being situated at street level and witnessing the rapid evolution of pollutants because of our proximity to the sources of pollution, the data becomes more accurate (carbon monoxide dissipates rapidly from the emitting source), the experience is embodied and not abstracted’.2 The chalk itself is impermanent, and thus serves as a suitable material for inscribing the data on streets, without the permanency of other materials. Thus, it both visibilises environmental data, and does so in a way that allows for changing levels of CO concentrations across time.