ABSTRACT
Air is an inescapable facet of our planetary existence, but our relationship to air is changing, with increasing bushfires, allergens and airborne viruses. We need to confront the urgent question of why we are increasingly starting to need to protect ourselves from our air, and if we shouldn’t rather be seeking to ensure that our air is protected from us. In this chapter, I explore how emerging air technologies and dominant narratives about the measurable qualities of air are participating in these shifts, and ask how we might mend their current disconnect with the realities of everyday breathing. What does the growth of automated air technologies and systems in homes, workplaces, schools and transport systems mean for social inequalities? Who gets to breathe the best air? How do people creatively engage with air? What does the future of air feel like from the everyday? I propose we must ask such questions as we rethink the future of air through the prism of possibility, ethics and responsibility.
