Medien Wiki - User contributions [en]

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-07-17T08:45:01Z

Rofo0574:

Final project documentation:

'''Air Ethnographies: how to sense, belong, and live in Narva'''

'''''Abstract:'''''

This project investigates how the atmosphere records histories of extraction, displacement, and waste in Narva, Estonia. Through air data, field observations, and speculative photography, it explores how post-industrial landscapes reconfigure.

'''''Context:'''''

The atmosphere is a carrier of memory. When we enter a place, our perception of it changes depending on the stories we hear and the air we breathe. In the post-industrial landscapes of Eastern Estonia, especially in Narva and Kohtla-Järve, the air carries no longer traces of the mined pollutants but of systemic displacement and industrial afterlives.

Following Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004, stricter environmental regulations prompted major restructuring in its energy sector, which heavily relied on oil shale. As the country regains independence after soviet occupation and their new policies adapt to EU climate goals, many workers, particularly from the Russian-speaking community are exiled from the deflating industry. These workers, once essential, have become what Kesküla (2018) describes as “waste people,” devalued by a shifting economic and ecological regime. Simultaneously, the material waste of oil shale, ash mountains and abandoned industrial infrastructure, has been recast as cultural heritage or aesthetic ruin sites of Estonia tourist industry.

This project responds to these tensions by investigating how air becomes a site of entanglement between extraction and displacement. Drawing from elemental ethnography and discard studies, I ask: how can both embodied, disembodied and speculative data help us sense the less visible remains of resource politics? How do waste infrastructures and atmospheric residues narrate a story of bodies made disposable under transition policies?

'''''Process, Methods and Findings:'''''

This project takes a site-specific and materially engaged approach to investigating the air in Narva and surrounding oil shale landscapes. Using atmospheric sensing as both method and metaphor, I trace how the air intersects with social histories of displacement and industrial decline. I react to ethnography as a qualitative research method focused on immersive observation and participation to understand the lived experiences, practices, and meanings within a cultural or social group.

I aim to study the lived consequences of energy transition through a mixed-method approach. This includes field observations, air quality measurements, sound/smell documentation, and visual records of abandoned and “revalued” sites. The goal is to trace the ways in which atmosphere carries the contradictions of progress: both as toxic residue and as speculative site for renewal.

The base foundation layer of the map comes from the circular chromatography of oil shale ash and soils collected from the post-industrial landscapes of Narva, Estonia. Circular chromatography is a method used to analyze and visualize the chemical composition of substances. A small quantity of each sample was diluted and placed at the center of circular filter paper, where it was drawn outward by a solvent through capillary action. As the solution spread, various compounds within the ash and soil separated and revealed themselves as rings, stains, and gradients, each a signature of mineral content, combustion residues, or microbial activity. The resulting chromatograms became visual indicators of environmental stress, waste accumulation, and potentially toxic compositions left behind by the energy industry. In this way, the method served not only as a form of ecological sensing but also as a poetic and speculative archive of air’s residues in the ground.

My fieldwork process includes several layers of documentation. I carry a portable CO₂ and PM2.5/PM10 sensor to collect real-time air quality data across selected sites: Narva’s Eesti and Balti power plants, ash mountains, abandoned housing in Kohtla-Järve, storage ponds and mining museums. These numbers offer not only environmental metrics but also anchors for speculative reflection—what does it mean to breathe this air detached from its former industrial rhythm?

Alongside these measurements, I keep an observational journal, collecting fragments of sensory experience, smell, sound, wind, and stories of the lived residents. The dilemma between numerical facts and sensory experience lies at the heart of how we inhabit weather. I open my phone. My weather app tells me it’s 28 degrees Celsius, but it “feels like” 15. This discrepancy exposes a quiet truth: weather is not only a measurement, but a bodily encounter. We want to be our own thermometers, registering the shifting climate through sensation, not statistics. The wind brushing past the ears, the sting of cold rain, the thickened air before a storm, these are not just data points, but intimate signs. That’s why the field notes exist: to register what the sensors miss, to hold onto the moments where numbers fail to fully translate the weather’s presence on skin.

Initial findings suggest that air pollution is not only chemical waste, but also a residue of political transition. The changed air mirror displaced workers, both suspended in a limbo of devaluation. I photograph and note how infrastructure and bodies intertwine. These dynamics manifest not only in bodies but also in the built environment.

I also collected sound recordings at different sites, wind against metal fencing, the talks of mining guides and the near-silence of fenced-off energy plants. But perhaps this layer was not as necessary from the perspective of air.

In the working process, I also trialled with fictional weather report makings, however the host-dominated approach didn’t feel the most suitable as the project aims to shift the agency away from the human.

'''''Project description:'''''

The project resulted in a multi-scalar documentation process has culminated in the ethnographic mapping of statistical air data, sensory field notes, and speculative photography that imagines how these architectures might exist within such atmospheres. The photographs originate from my on-site analogue film documentation and are further speculated through AI-assisted tools in Adobe Photoshop.

One core outcome is a digital field diary that combines sensor data (CO₂, PM2.5/PM10) with textual observations, photographs, and sketches. Each entry links air pollution levels with surrounding scenes, such as the ash-colored corridors of Sompa’s abandoned housing, or the quiet hum of air conditioning inside shopping malls built near former mining zones. These entries form a nonlinear narrative of both environmental saturation and social evaporation.

I produced a series of still images with AI. These works speculate on the visibility of air and the invisibility of political displacement. Together, these elements form an evolving archive: a fragmented cartography of waste, and afterlife. The work does not aim to resolve the contradictions between ecological transition, but to making visible the latent atmospheres of a region navigating both the end of an industry and the remains of its living infrastructure.

From this project onwards I reflect on how does one live in air as a socially constructed medium in the age of human conditioning? This question anchors my investigation into atmospheric inequality and sensory experience. Borrowing from Peter Sloterdijk’s proposition that air has become “elementally explicit” through thermodynamic and nuclear interventions. Clean air, increasingly treated as a resource rather than a right, becomes a marker of class and infrastructural privilege. The uneven distribution of breathable air across cities, especially in the Global South, is not incidental but tied to colonial extractivism, global trade flows, and the systemic disposability of certain populations. Air ethnographies thus trace not only the materiality of pollution but also the political architectures that govern who breathes what, where, and for how long.

'''''Material / final images'''''

attached in folder

'''''Navigation'''''

Possibly presented in an interactive layer mapping on the platform, either viewer can tick boxes and shows different layers? The layers could be named the same way as how I have named them in the photoshop file? I hope it opens? I have also attached images of how each may look as an export individually. (similar to the work reference of <nowiki>https://louisiana.forensic-architecture.org/</nowiki>?)

If the texts could be floating/moving in the map that would be amazing, but it’s not essential.

'''''References and credits:'''''

Forensic Architecture. (n.d.). ''Louisiana: An open archive''. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved July 15, 2025, from <nowiki>https://louisiana.forensic-architecture.org/</nowiki>

Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people/value producers: Ambiguity, indeterminacy and post-socialist Russian‑speaking miners. In C. Alexander & A. Sanchez (Eds.), ''Indeterminacy: Waste, value and the imagination'' (pp. xx–xx). Pluto Press.

Mbembe, A. (2019). ''Necropolitics'' (S. Corcoran, Trans.). Duke University Press. (Original work published 2003)

Pinsky, M. (2017). ''Pollution Pods'' [Installation]. <nowiki>http://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods/</nowiki>

Sloterdijk, P. (2009). ''Terror from the air'' (A. Patton & S. Corcoran, Trans.). Semiotext(e). (Original work published 2002)

Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.

====== '''====================''' ======

====== '''Ethnography of carbon displacement''' ======
'''Background:'''

Air in cities feels different depending on what raw materials they burn for energy—this was an observation noted by Michael Pinsky during his Pollution Pods project (Pinsky, n.d.). Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004 meant stricter air pollution regulations, this pushes the Estonian’s energy industry to undergo further reconfiguration. Whilst the material waste of oil shale ash have been reestablished its value as entertainment landscapes, certain mining working bodies have been devalued to “waste” (Kesküla, 2018). Carbon traces both the numerical embodiment of such polluting policies and the common denominator for living bodies and organics (Loeve and Vincent).

'''Main objectives:'''

How does the atmosphere record these changes in re/de-valuation of bodies and matter in this narrative of oil shale extraction? Can these quantified levels of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10 become an representation of the cyclic process of waste? I aim to conduct a systematic study of the elements of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10, in thinking about how elemental ethnography can be a method to trace their affective histories, and how they are entangled in systems of waste and extraction.

How long do these particles of waste remain the air, and how do embodied displacements experience this latent pollution, or how have they gained new rebirths? I am keeping in mind the discourse of discard studies and wasteland aesthetics, and how ‘wasting is a technique of power, broad and systematic approach to how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued and devalued, become disposable or dominant’ (Liboiron and Lepawsky). Why are these mining workers treated as waste when their workforce is no longer desired, and they are chosen to be sacrificed? (Mbembe, 2011) These displaced bodies are not ecological migrants; rather, they are political displacement. I hypothesis that the air data of Narva oil shale infrastructures records its involvement in pollution and waste, and speculate on possible the regeneration and renewals at sites too. I am open minded to finding what becomes present at these sites of contest.

'''Technical description: tools, method, process'''

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and collection of gas datas and sensorial observations (using a portable gas sensor). I would like to collaborate with other sound engineers to record other sound and smell elements for other presences that are beyond human frequencies.

Template of data : CO2, PM2.5/PM10 and more

'''Sites of interest/elemental tracing:'''

* narva, Eesti Power Plant
* Narva, Balti Power Plant
* indoor conditioned spheres/shopping centres/museums of mining /within proximities of ash mountains
* outdoor 'daily' living spaces?
* SOMPA abandoned housing blocks in the town of Kohtla-Järve/other ghost towns

'''References'''

* Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people or value producers? Contesting bioeconomic imaginaries of oil shale mining in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 487–505. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1503624</nowiki>
* Michael Pinsky. (n.d.). Pollution Pods. <nowiki>https://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods-2/</nowiki>
* Printsmann, A., Sepp, M., & Luud, A. (2012). The land of oil-shale: the image, protection, and future of mining landscape heritage. In Häyrynen, S., Turunen, R., & Nyman, J. (Eds.), Locality, Memory, Reconstruction: The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-Industry Communities (pp. 180–196). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
* Tsing, A. L., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds.). (2017). Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1qft070</nowiki>
* The Baltic Atlas. (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale
* Achille Mbembe (2011) Necropolitics
* Sacha LOEVE & Bernadette BENSAUDE VINCENT, THE MULTIPLE SIGNATURES OF CARBON
* Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky , Discard Studies, Wasting, Systems, and Pow

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-07-17T08:40:44Z

Rofo0574:

Final project documentation

====== '''====================''' ======

====== '''Ethnography of carbon displacement''' ======
'''Background:'''

Air in cities feels different depending on what raw materials they burn for energy—this was an observation noted by Michael Pinsky during his Pollution Pods project (Pinsky, n.d.). Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004 meant stricter air pollution regulations, this pushes the Estonian’s energy industry to undergo further reconfiguration. Whilst the material waste of oil shale ash have been reestablished its value as entertainment landscapes, certain mining working bodies have been devalued to “waste” (Kesküla, 2018). Carbon traces both the numerical embodiment of such polluting policies and the common denominator for living bodies and organics (Loeve and Vincent).

'''Main objectives:'''

How does the atmosphere record these changes in re/de-valuation of bodies and matter in this narrative of oil shale extraction? Can these quantified levels of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10 become an representation of the cyclic process of waste? I aim to conduct a systematic study of the elements of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10, in thinking about how elemental ethnography can be a method to trace their affective histories, and how they are entangled in systems of waste and extraction.

How long do these particles of waste remain the air, and how do embodied displacements experience this latent pollution, or how have they gained new rebirths? I am keeping in mind the discourse of discard studies and wasteland aesthetics, and how ‘wasting is a technique of power, broad and systematic approach to how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued and devalued, become disposable or dominant’ (Liboiron and Lepawsky). Why are these mining workers treated as waste when their workforce is no longer desired, and they are chosen to be sacrificed? (Mbembe, 2011) These displaced bodies are not ecological migrants; rather, they are political displacement. I hypothesis that the air data of Narva oil shale infrastructures records its involvement in pollution and waste, and speculate on possible the regeneration and renewals at sites too. I am open minded to finding what becomes present at these sites of contest.

'''Technical description: tools, method, process'''

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and collection of gas datas and sensorial observations (using a portable gas sensor). I would like to collaborate with other sound engineers to record other sound and smell elements for other presences that are beyond human frequencies.

Template of data : CO2, PM2.5/PM10 and more

'''Sites of interest/elemental tracing:'''

* narva, Eesti Power Plant
* Narva, Balti Power Plant
* indoor conditioned spheres/shopping centres/museums of mining /within proximities of ash mountains
* outdoor 'daily' living spaces?
* SOMPA abandoned housing blocks in the town of Kohtla-Järve/other ghost towns

'''References'''

* Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people or value producers? Contesting bioeconomic imaginaries of oil shale mining in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 487–505. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1503624</nowiki>
* Michael Pinsky. (n.d.). Pollution Pods. <nowiki>https://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods-2/</nowiki>
* Printsmann, A., Sepp, M., & Luud, A. (2012). The land of oil-shale: the image, protection, and future of mining landscape heritage. In Häyrynen, S., Turunen, R., & Nyman, J. (Eds.), Locality, Memory, Reconstruction: The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-Industry Communities (pp. 180–196). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
* Tsing, A. L., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds.). (2017). Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1qft070</nowiki>
* The Baltic Atlas. (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale
* Achille Mbembe (2011) Necropolitics
* Sacha LOEVE & Bernadette BENSAUDE VINCENT, THE MULTIPLE SIGNATURES OF CARBON
* Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky , Discard Studies, Wasting, Systems, and Pow

----

**

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-18T17:50:36Z

Rofo0574:

'''Ethnography of carbon displacement'''

'''Background:'''

Air in cities feels different depending on what raw materials they burn for energy—this was an observation noted by Michael Pinsky during his Pollution Pods project (Pinsky, n.d.). Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004 meant stricter air pollution regulations, this pushes the Estonian’s energy industry to undergo further reconfiguration. Whilst the material waste of oil shale ash have been reestablished its value as entertainment landscapes, certain mining working bodies have been devalued to “waste” (Kesküla, 2018). Carbon traces both the numerical embodiment of such polluting policies and the common denominator for living bodies and organics (Loeve and Vincent).

'''Main objectives:'''

How does the atmosphere record these changes in re/de-valuation of bodies and matter in this narrative of oil shale extraction? Can these quantified levels of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10 become an representation of the cyclic process of waste? I aim to conduct a systematic study of the elements of CO2 and PM2.5/PM10, in thinking about how elemental ethnography can be a method to trace their affective histories, and how they are entangled in systems of waste and extraction.

How long do these particles of waste remain the air, and how do embodied displacements experience this latent pollution, or how have they gained new rebirths? I am keeping in mind the discourse of discard studies and wasteland aesthetics, and how ‘wasting is a technique of power, broad and systematic approach to how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued and devalued, become disposable or dominant’ (Liboiron and Lepawsky). Why are these mining workers treated as waste when their workforce is no longer desired, and they are chosen to be sacrificed? (Mbembe, 2011) These displaced bodies are not ecological migrants; rather, they are political displacement. I hypothesis that the air data of Narva oil shale infrastructures records its involvement in pollution and waste, and speculate on possible the regeneration and renewals at sites too. I am open minded to finding what becomes present at these sites of contest.

'''Technical description: tools, method, process'''

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and collection of gas datas and sensorial observations (using a portable gas sensor). I would like to collaborate with other sound engineers to record other sound and smell elements for other presences that are beyond human frequencies.

Template of data : CO2, PM2.5/PM10 and more

'''Sites of interest/elemental tracing:'''

* narva, Eesti Power Plant
* Narva, Balti Power Plant
* indoor conditioned spheres/shopping centres/museums of mining /within proximities of ash mountains
* outdoor 'daily' living spaces?
* SOMPA abandoned housing blocks in the town of Kohtla-Järve/other ghost towns

'''References'''

* Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people or value producers? Contesting bioeconomic imaginaries of oil shale mining in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 487–505. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1503624</nowiki>
* Michael Pinsky. (n.d.). Pollution Pods. <nowiki>https://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods-2/</nowiki>
* Printsmann, A., Sepp, M., & Luud, A. (2012). The land of oil-shale: the image, protection, and future of mining landscape heritage. In Häyrynen, S., Turunen, R., & Nyman, J. (Eds.), Locality, Memory, Reconstruction: The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-Industry Communities (pp. 180–196). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
* Tsing, A. L., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds.). (2017). Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1qft070</nowiki>
* The Baltic Atlas. (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale
* Achille Mbembe (2011) Necropolitics
* Sacha LOEVE & Bernadette BENSAUDE VINCENT, THE MULTIPLE SIGNATURES OF CARBON
* Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky , Discard Studies, Wasting, Systems, and Power

=== ✅ '''AirVisual / IQAir App''' ===

* Shows '''real-time AQI, PM2.5, CO₂''' from nearby stations.
* '''Does not measure directly''', but useful for context.

=== ✅ '''Plume Labs: Air Report''' ===

* Real-time AQI & pollution forecasts.
* Good for mapping air exposure during your walks.

=== ✅ '''iPhone + external sensors (e.g., Flow 2 or Aranet4)''' ===

* Plug-and-play with Bluetooth.
* Can sync with '''Strava-style apps''' for geolocating pollution data.

=== '''1. Physical and Chemical Factors (Scientific/Environmental)''' ===
These are the measurable, often instrumental aspects:

* '''Pollutant types:'''
** '''PM2.5 / PM10''' (fine particulate matter)
** '''CO₂''' (carbon dioxide)
** '''NO₂''' (nitrogen dioxide)
** '''SO₂''' (sulfur dioxide)
** '''O₃''' (ozone)
** '''VOCs''' (volatile organic compounds)
** '''Lead''', '''mercury''', etc. (in some industrial contexts)
* '''Meteorological conditions:'''
** '''Temperature'''
** '''Humidity'''
** '''Wind direction/speed'''
** '''Atmospheric pressure'''
** '''Inversions''' (which trap pollution near the surface)
* '''Temporal variations:'''
** Time of day
** Seasonal patterns
** Long-term trends (post-regulation, post-industry, etc.)

----

**

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-12T14:14:36Z

Rofo0574:

=== Boundaries of Air and Displacement ===
'''Background:'''

Air in cities feels different depending on what raw materials they burn for energy—this was an observation noted by Michael Pinsky during his Pollution Pods project (Pinsky, n.d.). Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004 regulated the air pollution from local power plant emissions. In order to stay below the now stricter standards, the Estonian oil shale power industry underwent a large reductive transformation, and many workers became unemployed. There are several groups of bodies affected. One group consists of the Russian miners who remained in Estonia and Kazakhstan after the end of the Soviet Union. Their employment opportunities are unpredictable, and they face constant indeterminacy. Their standing in society has dropped to second-class, and they feel they are treated as ‘waste’ (Kesküla, 2018). In lived effects, the largest buildings in Narva—which are the Eesti Power Plant and Balti Power Plant, are now also much emptier, so are the SOMPA abandoned housing blocks in the town of Kohtla-Järve, which we will visit. How will these embodied displacementes continue to play out for the workers in energy production in Ida-Viru, in response to Territorial Just Transition Plan (TJTP) , where objectives are se to cease electricity production from oil shale by 2035, to phase out oil shale in energy production by 2040 and to reach climate neutrality by 2050 ((European Commission, 2022).

'''Main objectives:'''

How do these ghostly/disused infrastructures come to terms with the idea of pollution or waste? I hypothesise that such economic consequences of the EU's accession have reshaped the Narva population and the local labour force. I want to investigate how oil shale creates air pollution that is, at first, a chemical waste, but can later have effects on the workers and residents, thereby transforming these bodies into emotional and political wastes.

How has the physicalised air pollution in Narva created displacements in the Estonian/Russian residents? And how do we follow this migration, in reference to the long history of the changing Narva demographics? A large archive and documentation regarding the local workforce already exists. Therefore, I want to propose a lens of visualising and speculating on these displaced bodies and real estate, in relation to the statistics and qualities of air in Narva. These displaced bodies are not ecological migrants; rather, they are political migrants, a consequence of Estonia’s choice to be accepted into the ‘air’ of the EU.

How does the new generation of residents react to the “wasteland aesthetics” of the past Baltic industrial cities (Printsmann, Sepp, & Luud, 2012)? To study our ‘ghosts’ of the modern anthropos, how ghosts of oil shale over-extraction exist in the forms of rusting rooms and the breathed air. These ghosts disturbed certain families and habitations in traceable ways (Tsing et al., 2017). The abandoned and underused industrial sites are representative of Narva’s changing economy. Notions of decay, disuse, and regeneration will be in focus during the technical observations on site.

I anticipate an outcome of a multimedia library of different sensorial observations collected from this research, represented in a digital/physical publication or webpage.

'''Technical description: tools, method, process'''

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and collection of air and soil samples to study their temperature, humidity, CO₂ levels, and other air particles (using a portable CO₂ sensor). Statistical methods for transforming the data in the air samples will be created in parallel with Narva’s existing demographic data, in simplified illustration.

I will also pay attention to building surfaces and soils for any resilient beings that grow in such conditions, searching for their ‘symbiotic assemblages.’ I will record other sound and smell elements at the sites of the housing blocks and former and current oil shale power plants in Narva.

'''locations:'''

- indoor conditioned spheres/shopping centres/museums of mining /within proximities of ash mountains

- outdoor 'daily' living spaces?

- ghost architecture areas

'''References'''

* Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people or value producers? Contesting bioeconomic imaginaries of oil shale mining in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 487–505. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1503624</nowiki>
* Michael Pinsky. (n.d.). Pollution Pods. <nowiki>https://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods-2/</nowiki>
* Printsmann, A., Sepp, M., & Luud, A. (2012). The land of oil-shale: the image, protection, and future of mining landscape heritage. In Häyrynen, S., Turunen, R., & Nyman, J. (Eds.), Locality, Memory, Reconstruction: The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-Industry Communities (pp. 180–196). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
* Tsing, A. L., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds.). (2017). Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1qft070</nowiki>
* The Baltic Atlas. (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale.
* European Commission. (2022, October 10). ''EU Cohesion Policy: €354 million for Estonia to phase out oil shale in energy production''. <nowiki>https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/whats-new/newsroom/10-10-2022-eu-cohesion-policy-eur354-million-for-estonia-to-phase-out-oil-shale-in-energy-production_en</nowiki>
potential list of tools:

SDS011 PM precision sensor to arduino

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+connet+SDS011+to+arduino&oq=how+to+connet+SDS011+to+arduino&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAHSAQg1OTA1ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:576d4a5a,vid:lDyk67QEk0k,st:41

{| class="wikitable"
!App
!Temp & Humidity
!Local Sensor
!Free Version
!Notes
|-
|MyObservatory
|✅
|❌ (uses nearby station)
|✅
|Great UI, public data
|-
|Clime
|✅
|❌
|✅
|NOAA radar, pretty interface
|-
|Weather Underground
|✅
|❌
|✅
|Community stations, detailed
|-
|Netatmo
|✅
|✅ (if device)
|✅
|Pair with own sensor
|}

== '''Compact, Affordable Devices''' (under ~€250) ==

=== 🔸 '''Temtop M10 or M2000 Series''' ===

* '''Measures''': PM2.5, PM10, CO₂, formaldehyde, temperature, humidity.
* '''Price''': €100–€250
* '''Pros''': Easy to use, reliable for field comparisons.
* '''Limitations''': Lower-end models don’t include CO₂.

=== 🔸 '''Aranet4 Home (for CO₂, Temp, RH)''' ===

* '''Measures''': CO₂, temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure.
* '''Price''': ~€250
* '''Pros''': Bluetooth connectivity, long battery life, easy data export.
* '''Used by researchers''' for indoor/outdoor air studies.

=== 🔸 '''Qingping Air Monitor Lite''' ===

* '''Measures''': PM2.5, PM10, CO₂, temp, humidity.
* '''Price''': ~€100–150
* '''Compact and App-connected''' (iOS/Android).

=== 🔸 '''Atmotube Pro''' ===

* '''Measures''': PM1, PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, CO₂, temp, humidity, barometric pressure.
* '''Price''': ~€200
* '''Portable''': clips onto your bag and logs data via smartphone app.
* Good for '''outdoor urban environments'''.

----

== 📱 '''Free or Low-Cost Mobile Apps & Add-ons''' ==
These don’t replace physical sensors, but can help gather '''crowdsourced or modelled air quality data''' or link with external devices:

=== ✅ '''AirVisual / IQAir App''' ===

* Shows '''real-time AQI, PM2.5, CO₂''' from nearby stations.
* '''Does not measure directly''', but useful for context.

=== ✅ '''Plume Labs: Air Report''' ===

* Real-time AQI & pollution forecasts.
* Good for mapping air exposure during your walks.

=== ✅ '''iPhone + external sensors (e.g., Flow 2 or Aranet4)''' ===

* Plug-and-play with Bluetooth.
* Can sync with '''Strava-style apps''' for geolocating pollution data.

=== '''1. Physical and Chemical Factors (Scientific/Environmental)''' ===
These are the measurable, often instrumental aspects:

* '''Pollutant types:'''
** '''PM2.5 / PM10''' (fine particulate matter)
** '''CO₂''' (carbon dioxide)
** '''NO₂''' (nitrogen dioxide)
** '''SO₂''' (sulfur dioxide)
** '''O₃''' (ozone)
** '''VOCs''' (volatile organic compounds)
** '''Lead''', '''mercury''', etc. (in some industrial contexts)
* '''Meteorological conditions:'''
** '''Temperature'''
** '''Humidity'''
** '''Wind direction/speed'''
** '''Atmospheric pressure'''
** '''Inversions''' (which trap pollution near the surface)
* '''Temporal variations:'''
** Time of day
** Seasonal patterns
** Long-term trends (post-regulation, post-industry, etc.)

----

=== 🗺️ '''2. Spatial Factors (Where and How Pollution Moves)''' ===

* '''Source identification:'''
** Local: factories, vehicles, stoves
** Regional: agricultural burn-off, industrial zones
** Transboundary: drifting pollution from neighboring countries
* '''Topography:'''
** Valleys often trap air pollution
** Elevation and land use influence dispersion
* '''Drift and accumulation:'''
** How air travels across borders, oceans, or rural/urban divides

----

=== ⚖️ '''3. Socio-Political and Economic Factors''' ===

* '''Environmental policy and regulation:'''
** EU standards, WHO thresholds, national air quality laws
** Enforcement gaps, loopholes, or selective monitoring
* '''Inequity of exposure:'''
** Environmental racism/classism (who breathes dirtier air?)
** Urban vs. rural or industrial vs. residential exposure
* '''Industrial history and economic transition:'''
** What closed? What opened?
** How has industry shaped the airscape (e.g. Narva)?
* '''Data transparency and opacity:'''
** What is measured and shared (or hidden)?
** Whose air is considered legitimate or monitored?

----

=== 👃 '''4. Sensory and Experiential Factors''' ===

* '''Smell, visibility, bodily perception:'''
** Irritation, heaviness, temperature shifts, “dustiness”
* '''Cultural and symbolic meanings:'''
** Clean vs. polluted
** Air as life vs. air as weapon
* '''Atmospheric aesthetics:'''
** How air and pollution shape a place’s look and feel

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-06T16:44:48Z

Rofo0574:

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-06T16:29:46Z

Rofo0574: final update

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-06T13:35:33Z

Rofo0574:

proposal: boundaries of air and migration

background:

Estonia's accession to the EU in 2004 regulated the air pollution of local power plant emissions. In order to stay within its now tighter standards, the estonian power plant industry underwent a large reduction. One of the biggest buildings in Narva was the power plant and it is now almost empty. (ref) The buildings we are visiting K.., the ghost towns

more about displacement and air

o 10+ '''sentences description: main object/focus of fieldwork, research, question, anticipated outcomes'''

I hypothesise that such economic consequences of EU's accession have reshaped the Narva population and the local labour force. I want to trace.

'''o 5+ technical description: tools, method, process'''

inspiration from old one to look at elements etc,

5+ references

our task

▪ Tracing how objects, bodies, plants, organisms and places are linked into

relations of mutual shaping and interdependence

▪ Emphasis 1: tracing shifting boundaries of waste, residue, raw materials and

resource and how they facilitate, diffract and/or redistribute life-enabling or

constraining potentials and capacities across times and scales

▪ Emphasis 2: unpacking less noticeable tensions, collaborations, solidarities and

attunements emerging from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ of land, bodies,

ecosystems, or soils, etc.

* Feel free to set your own focus within the main objectives of this program

Key Steps (in preparation of field week)

▪ Select an object, organism, specimen, people or places to study

▪ Conduct preparatory research on de/re-composition of elemental flows they

embody and to what effect

▪ Summarize your research interest/planned experiment in an idea paper on the

course wiki

o 5+ sentences background info,

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-06T13:34:53Z

Rofo0574:

proposal: boundaries of air and migration

background:

Estonia's accession to the EU in 2004 regulated the air pollution of local power plant emissions. In order to stay within its now tighter standards, the estonian power plant industry underwent a large reduction. One of the biggest buildings in Narva was the power plant and it is now almost empty. (ref) The buildings we are visiting K.., the ghost towns

more about displacement and air

o 10+ '''sentences description: main object/focus of fieldwork, research, question, anticipated outcomes'''

I hypothesise that such economic consequences of EU's accession have reshaped the Narva population and the local labour force. I want to trace.

'''o 5+ technical description: tools, method, process'''

o 5+ references

our task

▪ Tracing how objects, bodies, plants, organisms and places are linked into

relations of mutual shaping and interdependence

▪ Emphasis 1: tracing shifting boundaries of waste, residue, raw materials and

resource and how they facilitate, diffract and/or redistribute life-enabling or

constraining potentials and capacities across times and scales

▪ Emphasis 2: unpacking less noticeable tensions, collaborations, solidarities and

attunements emerging from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ of land, bodies,

ecosystems, or soils, etc.

* Feel free to set your own focus within the main objectives of this program

Key Steps (in preparation of field week)

▪ Select an object, organism, specimen, people or places to study

▪ Conduct preparatory research on de/re-composition of elemental flows they

embody and to what effect

▪ Summarize your research interest/planned experiment in an idea paper on the

course wiki

o 5+ sentences background info,

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-05T05:43:33Z

Rofo0574:

proposal: boundaries of air and migration

our task

▪ Tracing how objects, bodies, plants, organisms and places are linked into

relations of mutual shaping and interdependence

▪ Emphasis 1: tracing shifting boundaries of waste, residue, raw materials and

resource and how they facilitate, diffract and/or redistribute life-enabling or

constraining potentials and capacities across times and scales

▪ Emphasis 2: unpacking less noticeable tensions, collaborations, solidarities and

attunements emerging from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ of land, bodies,

ecosystems, or soils, etc.

* Feel free to set your own focus within the main objectives of this program

Key Steps (in preparation of field week)

▪ Select an object, organism, specimen, people or places to study

▪ Conduct preparatory research on de/re-composition of elemental flows they

embody and to what effect

▪ Summarize your research interest/planned experiment in an idea paper on the

course wiki

o 5+ sentences background info,

background:

Estonia's accession to the EU in 2004 regulated the air pollution of local power plant emissions. In order to stay within its now tighter standards, the estonian power plant industry underwent a large reduction. One of the biggest buildings in Narva was the power plant and it is now almost empty. (ref) The buildings we are visiting K.., the ghost towns

I hypothesise that such economic consequences of EU's accession have reshaped the Narva population and the local labour force. I want to trace.

o 10+ '''sentences description: main object/focus of fieldwork, research'''

'''question, anticipated outcomes'''

'''o 5+ technical description: tools, method, process'''

o 5+ references

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-05-01T23:33:00Z

Rofo0574:

'''proposal:'''

'''Toward a “Wetland Aesthetics”'''

Specimen: sphagnum moss

Or

Location: Puhatu Wetland Complex, da-Viru County, Estonia (Puhatu soostik)

'''Background info'''

Northeastern Estonia are home to peatlands, which are carbon sinks shaped over millennia by slow accumulations of plant matter in water-saturated, anaerobic conditions. These landscapes have undergone forceful drainage, to repurpose the wetlands for agricultural or industrial uses. Not only that, decades of industrial pollution of ash, particularly from oil shale combustion has also increased the alkalinity of these bogs, which limits their carbon holding capacity. Contemporary efforts in restoration have reconsidered the biodiversity and carbon retaining abilities of sphagnum moss in bogs. Recent scholarship prompts us to reconsider the ‘unintentional designs at sites of disturbances (Tsing, 2023) and the spontaneous potentials of “wastelands" (''The Baltic Atlas,'' 2016). How do these peatlands mediate between ongoing industrial violence and future climatic hopes? I aim to unpack how it becomes a carbon bank—a slow body that stabilizes what once moved rapidly and violently through the air. Through this lens, the peatland is not merely a landscape but an entangled infrastructure of storage, filtering, and reconfiguration.

'''Main Objective / Field Focus'''

This fieldwork centers on sphagnum moss growing in acidic conditions of northeastern Estonian peatlands. It is a situation of a multispecies and multi-elemental assemblage with the atmosphere, sphagnum moss, oil shale ash, vascular plants and microbial life. I focus on tracing the photosynthesizing process of sphagnum moss in different peatlands samples, and how particularly how atmospheric residues linger in the bodies of plants and soils. The samples will involve environments altered with oil shale ash to see how the increased carbon dioxide, released through oil shale combustion, is being re-sequestered by the carbon sink-wetland substrate. Using the idea of a "wetland aesthetics," I examine the wetland as a site which redefines excess carbon pollution. However, perhaps once this carbon pollution is stored in an inactive state, its toxicity status can be reconsidered. Through this investigation, my artistic intervention builds on the abstraction of how the sense of time, and movement is obscured in the peatlands, where decomposition is slowed due to the acidic of the soil being anoxic (oxygen-deprived) in peatlands, which restricts the activity of many decomposers, which are organisms that break down organic matter.

'''Technical Description'''

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and elemental mapping (e.g., visualizing zones of higher moss activity or ash residue). I will collect air and soil temperature/humidity data (using a portable CO₂ sensor?) and include sound recordings to document the peatland’s auditory atmosphere (wind, water movement, birdlife). Additional elements could include aesthetic transformation of the land, and speculative visualizations of carbon entrapment over time.

'''Preliminary References'''

# ''Ots, K., Tullus, T., Sild, M., Tullus, A., Täll, K., & Tullus, H. (2023). Ash treatment promotes the revegetation of abandoned extracted peatlands. Land, 13(10), 1623. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.3390/land13101623</nowiki>''
# Paal, J., Vellak, K., Liira, J., & Karofeld, E. (2010). ''Bog Recovery in Northeastern Estonia after the Reduction of Atmospheric Pollutant Input.''
# Tsing, A. (2023). ''Bestiary of the Anthropocene'', Chapter: “Unruly Edges.”
# ''The Baltic Atlas'' (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale.
# Wojcik, M., & Almeida, A. S. (2024). The role of peatlands in carbon storage and climate change mitigation: A review of ecosystem services, threats, and restoration approaches. Science of The Total Environment, 915, 170501. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170501</nowiki>

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

2025-04-11T10:30:05Z

Rofo0574: Created page with "'''background information''' '''idea''' '''references'''"

'''background information'''

'''idea'''

'''references'''

GMU:Re-enchanting the field

2025-04-11T10:29:35Z

Rofo0574:

Preparatory Sessions (Online): April 4th, 11th 25th and May 9th 2025
 Field visit, Narva, Estonia (including travel days): 18.5. – 25.5.2025
 Follow up & Project Review (online): June 20th and July 5th 2025

Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Kerstin Ergenzinger, Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus University Weimar)
 Prof. Monika Halkort (University of Applied Arts Vienna)
 Prof. Myriel Milicevic (Potsdam University of Applied Sciences)
 Prof. Kärt Ojavee (Estonian Academy of Arts)

NUMBER OF ECTS AWARDED: 6 (4 SWS)

Topics addressed: energy transitions, extractivism, industrial waste as material witness and driver of (geo)political transformations and change.

The Chairs of Acoustic Ecologies and Media Environments invite students from Media Art and Design program to apply for a week-long field experiment in Narva, Estonia, near the Russian border. In collaboration with colleagues from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (School for Transformation), the Estonian Academy of Arts (Master of Craft Studies), and Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Department of Design) we investigate the material legacy of oil shale extraction in the Baltic region, focusing in particular on the historical entanglement of energy, substances, landscapes, and bodies, and their unintended proliferations and designs.

Our main aim is to engage with the emergent properties of bio/geo-chemical waste in their broader geopolitical context and to unpack how they hold landscapes and bodies in colonial relations, long after the mining activities have been shut down.

Oil shales are marine fossils stored in rocks containing kerogen that can be converted into crude oil and gas. The northeast of Estonia is extremely rich in oil shale reserves that have attracted the interest of imperial powers and totalitarian regimes throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The unfettered violence of colonial and capitalist extraction has left behind vast mountains of industrial ash, and polluting materials, that are waiting to be remediated and disposed. The enduring legacy of toxic waste in open dumps next to forests, rivers, and unused agricultural lands has created its own queer ecologies that collectively remake environments in which received boundaries between waste, residue and resource, or regenerative materials are continuously renegotiated, reconfigured and redrawn.

During this 5 day workshop, we want to explore the recurrent cycles of decomposition, death and renewal that are shaping the ambivalent landscapes of extractivism in Estonia, making their queer connections and affinities visible and apparent for critical inquiry and future research. “Queer” in this context does not necessarily describe something that already exists. Rather, queer inaugurates a certain kind of future of intelligibility for beings and collectives who are not yet available for explication. Hence, we consider the shale oil waste dumps as post-natural worlds, traversed by imperial and capitalist relations, whose historically specific modes of (chemo/techno)sociality and untapped potentials we seek to understand.

===METHODOLOGY & TASKS===

Toxicity is a specific genre of harm that describes the (re)ordering of living systems across timeframes and scales. Following Tironi and Liberoin, (p. 336;) it creates shared conditions for what thrives and what is altered, what ‘persist[s] and redistributes[s] ‘ and ‘what is destroyed, injured, and constrained’ both as a premise for other things to thrive (Murphy, 2017: 141–142).

During the one-week residency in Estonia, we trace this reordering of life across the entire life cycle of oil shales - from their site of extraction along the Estonian coastline, to fossil fuel processing plants, all the way to the open waste dumps and riverbeds, where the toxic sludge and the industrial ash are deposited and dumped.

Together with local residents and field guides, we will visit ash mountains, ghost villages and abandoned manufacturing plants, built under Soviet Occupation (1941 – 1991), when oil shale production was at its historical height. Additional insights will be provided by scientific inputs from researchers in biology, geology, and environmental history in preparatory sessions online.

Our main task will be to create a living index of liminal relations that sustain the shale oil ecosystem, mapping how they animate, de/recompose and transform social and natural landscapes, organisms and bodies at different speeds, durations and levels of intensity. Drawing on acoustic sensing, environmental mappings, and elemental ethnography / bio-geochemical analysis, we hope to reveal the less noticeable tensions, collaborations, and attunements that emerge from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ (Masco) and forced transfers and unpack how they facilitate and/or disrupt land-body relations against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical borders and energy regimes.

===Participants===
Bauhaus Universität Weimar
* [[/Cosmo Schüppel]]
* [[/Jan Munske]]
* [[/Karlotta Sperling]]
* [[/Kitman Yeung]]
* [[/Nina Bendix Igleses]]
* [[/Öykü Türkan]]
* [[/Rieke Hettinger]]
* [[/Sabah Khaled]]

Potsdam University of Applied Sciences
* [[/Marie Buschmann]]
* [[/Laura Günther]]
* [[/Helena Haak]]
* [[/Hannah Charlotte Krause]]
* [[/Ina Kwon]]
* [[/Juliane Müller]]
* [[/Jennifer Schnurr]]
* [[/Ragnar Wilczek]]
* [[/Tilmann Finner]]

University of Applied Arts Vienna
* [[/Virginia Nicole Bonareri]]
* [[/Hans-Lionel Cayaban]]
* [[/Helin Ozdemir]]
* [[/Raphaela Leitner]]
* [[/Sara Karimi]]
* [[/Sofia Pechenaia]]
* [[/Yuri Turovskiy|/Yury Turovskiy]]
* [[/Jiun-You Ou]]

Estonian Academy of Arts
* [[/Chun Chow]]
* [[/Marite Helena Kuus]]
* [[/Mariam Mestvirishvili]]
* [[/Hannah Caroline Segerkrantz]]

===OUTCOMES===

The outcome of our material probes and observations will be documented in a shared workbook (digital/online publication) based on group projects conducted in the field.

Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding of bio-chemical processes and relations as critical infrastructures of geopolitical transformations and recognize how socio-ecological change is as much about (re)configuring life and responsibility beyond the individual body (Murphy, 2017, p. 479) as it is premised upon structures of violence and extraction that require land and bodies as sacrifice zones.

===BUDGET===

Participants receive stipends from the Erasmus programme to cover travel expenses.

===ACCOMMODATION===

We will be staying at Narva Art Residency (NART)
*https://www.nart.ee/en/residency/
*https://g.co/kgs/uLm4yKZ
'''Info Sheet Accomodation & Arrtival'''

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DB6yc_PfR_PKR0QnDerWHTY-JDR-xenj?usp=drive_link
===EXPECTATIONS===

Participation in the trip to Estonia 18. -25. May 2025
 Interest in discourse, reading, research as well as hands-on material experiments around anthropocene & feral landscapes, relationality, more-than-human design, interdisciplinary, experimental and poetic approaches, team work
 Documentation and experimental storytelling (transferring findings and relations into visual, sonic, experimental narratives). These narratives will be published on a dedicated course website.

===MATERIALS===
'''Course Materials (all)'''

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HV75lDkZEHdtrAgx0-7SFfqAEqqGSGdL

'''Social and Cultural History of Oil Shale Production in Estonia (Text)'''

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlz26-7diSfn2Mp-YVLSBt_TdLZdldKl?usp=drive_link

'''Environmental Studies (Text)'''

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yM6MCDSTPJWmKqPqw7r_KL6FQKmc9tjP?usp=drive_link

'''Ecology (Text)'''

*"Ocean earth: 1980 bis heute: 1980 bis heute. Ausstellung Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum im Künstlerhaus Graz, Febr./März 1993"; Peter Weibel, Peter Fend, Thomas Donga Heike Rekampe ISBN 978-3927789722
* "Microhabitable"; Fernando Garcia Dory and Lucia Pietroiusti ISBN 978-3753303864
* "[https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/technologies-of-care-7046 Technologies of Care" by Yvonne Volkart]

'''Methodology'''

* Feral Atlas feralatlas.org

GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeoung

2025-04-11T10:29:09Z

Rofo0574: Created page with "'''background idea''' '''idea''' '''references'''"

'''background idea'''

'''idea'''

'''references'''