It is an image of text from a housing developer in Pasadena combined with colors the author added as they interpret the text. The use of a green-yellow-red highlighting to signal imagined past-present-futures is very catchy and works well to point to the linguistic agencies behind this promotional text.
In the visual there is an explanation about the words in red and the words in green. What do the words in yellow represent? It would be interesting if there were some kind of representation contrasting what residents (or even activists) think about the text.
This visualization highlights the way in which history can be told in a way that embellishes the use of toxics and the creation of toxic environments, by pretending that there are solutions to stop toxicity and start all over again, or simply creating a narrative that renders invisible any trace of a toxic past
The visualization makes the argument that indoor air quality numbers (as measured by the ethnographer) cannot be read simply as a reflection of pollution from the outdoors. Rather the ethnographer suggests that there is an interpretive context within which these numbers can be understood. In this case the highway breeze interacts with smoke from the residents in the building to create particular effects that are reflected as the numbers.
The image has been created by the ethnographer to juxtapose the reading from air quality monitor and images of the highway with respect to the apartment, and a view from the apartment. It shows relative distance from the apartment and the highway in a horizontal manner, though the caption refers to the depth as well. The window seems dusty and brown, which could be read as aesthetically representative of the poor air quality.
The image is striking and points to many scales at which we can think of air quality--personal air quality within an apartment, air quality from outside the building, sources of air pollution within the building. Each of these points to different processes which produce toxic and poor air quality. I would be curious to see how the ethnographer thinks about air quality in relation to these different sources, and what it does for her thinking about the pollution from outdoors (the refinery, vehicular pollution, etc).
This visualization is a means of rendering toxicity visible, which seen in relation to the other image of the language used by developers to obscure the toxic reality of the site is striking.
Perhaps it could benefit from extending the discussion of this relationship between toxicity and invisibility.
This is a created image and is notable for producing a visualization of toxicity that is rendered invisible in the context of this project development. The image is creative and clearly articulates the message.
It would be beneficial if there was a way to enhance the image since it is slightly pixilated and difficult to read. Maybe also consider showing the step with the original statement, which might be a way to actually fully articulated everything your description says through the image itself.
