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Abstract
From his birth in 1971 to his death in 1984, a child born without a functioning immune system lived in a sealed isolator, his predicament immortalized in the term “bubble boy.” This paper follows the inhabitable sterile bubble from medical curiosity, through filmic fantasy, to its current status as a commercially available, mass-produced therapeutic retreat from urban air pollution. It is proposed that the conditions – technological, environmental and social – are now in place for a further iteration – the widespread uptake of lighter-weight, personal, wearable air bubbles that secure against airborne toxins. Arguing the entanglement of the self, immunity, architecture and air, this paper examines the conditions under which the adoption of privatized air is likely and with what effect on public space and the social body.
Notes
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2 Reyner Banham, Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, 2nd ed. (Copenhagen: Steensen Varming, (1969) 2004), 276.
3 “Sleep in a Bubble,” Attrap-Reves France. Available online: http://www.attrap-reves.com/en/sleep-in-a-bubble-cc/ (accessed October 30, 2014).
4 “Cloud by Monica Foster,” Offecct. Available online: http://www.offecct.se/en/products/room-dividers/cloud (accessed November 6, 2014).
5 “Cocoon,” Nordic Invention Co. Available online: http://www.nordicinvention.com/cocoon.html (accessed November 6, 2014).
6 Marc Dessauce maintains that “the inflatable ethos possessed a subversive constitution which recommended it to avant-garde practice”; Marc Dessauce, The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in ’68 (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 14.
7 “Bubble/Pure Air: How it Works,” Zonair3D. Available online: http://www.zonair3d.com/en/products/bubble-pure-air/ (accessed 14 October, 2014).
8 “Bubble/Pure Air: An Ideal Space for Beauty Treatments,” Zonair3D. Available online: http://www.zonair3d.com/blog/en/bubble-pure-air-an-ideal-space-for-beauty-treatments-2/ (accessed October 14, 2014).
9 Nicholas de Monchaux, Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).
10 Amy Kulper, “Ecology without the Oikos: Banham, Dallegret and the Morphological Context of Environmental Architecture,” Field: A Free Journal of Architecture 4, no. 1 (2011): 84.
11 Reyner Banham, “A Home is Not a House,” Art in America 2 (1965).
12 Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (London: Free Association Books, 1991), 212.
13 Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life, trans. Wieland Hoban (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), 449.
14 Peter Sloterdijk, Sphären III – Schäume (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2004), 3: 318, cited in Barbara Freitag Rouanet, “The Trilogy Spheres of Peter Sloterdijk,” Scribd, 79 (March 10, 2012). Available online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/84820166/The-Trilogy-Spheres-of-Peter-Sloterdijk (accessed July 15, 2014).
15 Ted De Vita was also referred to as a “bubble boy,” but his story and the environment to which he was confined are quite different. He was ten in 1972 when diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia (a condition in which the body is suddenly unable to produce new red cells) and confined to a laminar airflow room in a hospital. Ted died eight years later of iron overload from multiple blood transfusions.
16 Experiments in germfree animal colonies began in the 1940s, but the use of plastic films, such as Mylar, allowing cheaper isolators of lighter weight and transparency, was not developed until the 1950s; P.C. Trexler, “The Use of Plastics in the Design of Isolator Systems,” in “Germfree Vertebrates: Present Status,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 78, no. 1 (1959): 29–36; P.C. Trexler and Louise I. Reynolds, “Flexible Film Apparatus for the Rearing of Germfree Animals,” Applied Microbiology 5, no. 6 (1957): 406–12.
17 James Reyniers, “The Pure-Culture Concept and Gnotobiotics,” in “Germfree Vertebrates: Present Status,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 78, no. 1 (1959): 9, 11.
18 About US$200,000 was granted annually in research grants from the NIH; American Medical News 20, no. 1 (1977): 9–11.
19 The success rate of treatment of SCID through bone marrow transplant is now greater than 90%; A. Fisher, “Severe Combined Immunodeficiencies,” Clinical and Experimental Immunology 122, no. 2 (2000): 146.
20 Drummond Rennie, “Bubble Boy,” Journal of the American Medical Association 253, no. 1 (1985): 79.
21 Todd Ackerman, “Long after Bubble Boy’s Death Legacy Endures,” Houston Chronicle (February 22, 2009). Available online: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-22/news/17189901_1_immune-system-david-s-story-touches (accessed May 6, 2011).
22 Ibid.
23 Raymond J. Lawrence, “David the ‘Bubble Boy’ and the Boundaries of the Human,” Journal of the American Medical Association 253, no. 1 (1985): 75.
24 “The Bubble Boy’s Lost Battle,” Time (March 5, 1984). Available online: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952358,00.html (accessed July 11, 2014).
25 Kenneth Vaux, “Seeing Hope in a Bubble Boy,” Chicago Tribune (March 9, 1984).
26 National Lampoon, “The Bubble Family” (September 1984): 38–43.
27 There is also an Italian film, Questo Si Che e’ Amore (1978), that depicts a terminally ill boy confined to a sterile hospital room. The Bubble Boy trope has been a common one in television – Seinfeld, My Name is Earl, Northern Exposure and Grey’s Anatomy have all featured storylines about boys with mysterious illnesses confined to sterile rooms.
28 Bush sings from within a bubble, “I’ve been out before/ but this time it’s much safer in. […] What are we going to do without?/ Oh, leave me something to breathe.”
29 Mori Mariko, Mariko Mori: Esoteric Cosmos. Exhibition catalog (Ostfildern bei Stuttgart: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 1998).
30 Thomas Berghuis, Performance Art in China (Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2006), 30.
31 Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres. Volume I: Bubbles, Microspherology, trans. Wieland Hoban (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), (1998) 2011), 28.
32 “Bubble/Pure Air,” Zonair3D Facebook page. Available online: https://www.facebook.com/ZONAIR3D (accessed October 14, 2014).
33 Peter Sloterdijk, “Foreword to the Theory of the Spheres,” in Cosmograms, ed. Melik Ohanian and Jean-Christophe Royoux (New York and Berlin: Lukas & Sternberg, 2005), 230.
34 Douglas W. Dockery, C. Arden Pope, Xiping Xu, John D. Spengler, James H. Ware, Martha E. Fay, Benjamin G. Ferris, Jr. and Frank E. Speizer, “An Association between Air Pollution and Mortality in Six U.S. Cities,” New England Journal of Medicine 329 (December 1993): 1753–9.
35 Michael Guarnieri and John R. Balmes, “Outdoor Air Pollution and Asthma,” Lancet 383, no. 9928 (2014): 1581–92.
36 Air quality in China’s cities is among the worst in the world. In most Chinese cities, concentrations of fine particulate matter are still far above the WHO’s Air Quality Guidelines; Chak K. Chana and Xiaohong Yaoa, “Air Pollution in Mega Cities in China,” Atmospheric Environment 42, no. 1 (2008): 1. New stricter air quality standards (themselves much lower than WHO recommendations) were adopted in China in 2013, but only three out of seventy-four cities meet the new standards; “Top 10 Cities with Best Air Quality in China,” China Daily (March 19, 2014). Available online: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/greenchina/2014-03/19/content_17354135.html (accessed July 10, 2014).
37 Suzannah Hills, “China’s Latest Fad is Breath of Fresh Air: Oxygen Stations Set up across the Country so City Dwellers Can Escape Smog,” Daily Mail (31 March 2014) Available online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592762/Chinas-latest-fad-breath-fresh-air-Oxygen-stations-set-country-city-dwellers-escape-smog.html (accessed July 18, 2014).
38 In the United States, since regulations on air pollutants were federally implemented in 1970, the most dangerous pollutants have reduced dramatically: nitrogen oxide emissions fell from 27 to 19 million tons by 2006, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions were halved, and lead emissions fell by 98%. In Tokyo, the annual average suspended particulate matter and concentrations of fine particulate matter have decreased in the past two decades because of reductions in traffic volumes and improvements to vehicle engine performance, including the fitting of devices for exhaust emission reduction; Kunio Haraa, Junichi Hommab, Kenji Tamurac, Mariko Inoueb, Kanae Karitad and Eiji Yanob, “Decreasing Trends of Suspended Particulate Matter and PM2.5 Concentrations in Tokyo, 1990–2010,” Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 63, no. 6 (2013): 737–48.
39 Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Danger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
40 Joseph Luk, “Clean Air for Sale in China: Residents of Chinese Cities Choked with Air Pollution Look to Air Purifiers to Breathe Easier,” China Business Review (February 7, 2014). Available online: http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/clean-air-for-sale-in-china/ (accessed 9 July, 2014).
41 “Home Air Check,” Prism Analytical Technologies, Inc. USA. Available online: http://www.homeaircheck.com/about-testing (accessed May 11, 2014).
42 “The Pure Air Company.” Available online: http://www.thepurairco.com (accessed April 26, 2011).
43 “Portable USB Mini Indoor Air Quality Monitor (VOCs/CO2),” Air Concern. Available online: http://www.airconcern.co.uk/portable-usb-mini-indoor-air-quality-monitor-vocs-co2-p-122.html (accessed 15 October, 2014).
44 “Bubble/Pure Air at the Oscars Ceremony,” Zonair3D (February 27, 2013). Available online: http://www.zonair3d.com/blog/en/bubble-pure-air-at-the-oscars-ceremony/ (accessed 16 October, 2014).
45 Respirators that act passively or mechanically to filter out chemicals, gases and airborne particles from the ambient air breathed by the user date back to 1848 when the first US patent for an air purifying respirator was granted for “Haslett’s Lung Protector.”
46 “Breathe Pure Nasal Air Filter,” BreathePureNAP. Available online: http://www.breathepurenap.com (accessed July 9, 2014).
47 “California Regulates Ozone Generator air Purifiers,” Consumer Reports (October 15, 2007). Available online: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2007/10/california-regulates-ozone-generator-air-purifiers/index.htm (accessed October 21, 2014).
48 Ice Trojan, comment on Flyertalk Forum “Any Experience with Ultra Mini Air Supply?” (August 20, 2006). Available online: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/592671-any-experience-ultra-mini-air-supply.html (accessed October 23, 2014).
49 Luce Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger, trans. Mary Beth Mader (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 98.
50 In 2006, scientists discovered that urban air in San Antonio and Austin was teeming with more than 1800 types of bacteria, rivaling that of soil; Dan Krotz, “Study Finds the Air Rich with Bacteria,” Research News: Berkeley Lab (December 18, 2006). Available online: http://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/ESD-air-bacteria.html (accessed July 1, 2014).
51 Monika Bakke, “Air is Information,” in Going Aerial: Air, Art, Architecture (Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie, 2006), 12.
52 Zoe Williams, “Welcome to London – The Most Toxic Town on the Planet,” The Guardian (July 9, 2014). Available online: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/08/london-toxic-oxford-street-polluted-boris-johnson (accessed July 9, 2014).
53 Paul Virilio, in David Dufresne, “Virilio – Cyberesistance Fighter: An Interview with Paul Virilio,” trans. Jacques Houis (2005). Available online: http://www.apres-coup.org/mt/archives/title/2005/01/cyberesistance.html (accessed October 1, 2014).
54 Michel Bull, “‘To Each Their Own Bubble’: Mobile Spaces of Sound in the City,” in Media Space: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age, ed. Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy (London: Routledge, 2004), 277–88.
55 Richard Harper, “The Mobile Interface: Old Technologies and New Arguments,” in Wireless World, ed. Barry Brown and Nicola Green (London: Springer, 2002), 212.
56 Jérôme Sans, “The Game of Love and Chance: A Discussion with Paul Virilio,” Dialogues. Available online: http://www.watsoninstitute.org/infopeace/vy2k/sans.cfm (accessed August 8, 2011).
57 Peter Sloterdijk, “Interview: Something in the Air.”
58 “Bubbling,” Anacycle (November 1, 2011). Available online: http://www.anacycle.com/Critical-Bubbling (accessed 20 October, 2014).
59 The “Envirobubble” installation was led by Kostis Oungrinis and Marianthi Liapi (Technical University of Crete, Greece), Anna Pla Catalá (IE School of Architecture, University of Madrid, Spain), and Lydia Kallipoliti and Michael Young (The Cooper Union, New York, USA). It followed a student workshop at the Technical University of Crete in August 2010.
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Sandra Kaji-O’Grady
Sandra Kaji-O’Grady is Dean and Head of Architecture at the University of Queensland. She researches in the architectural humanities, with a focus on the transfer of ideas and techniques between contemporary fine arts and architecture, and architecture and the experimental sciences. Her work has been published in, for example, the Journal of Architecture, the Journal of Architectural Education, Architecture & and Le Journal Spéciale’Z. She has won several competitive external research grants from the Australian Research Council, including a Discovery Grant for “From Alchemist’s Den to Science City: Architecture and the Expression of Experimental Science.”