Clouds contain traces of the environments and the human activity they have passed over. For each Cloud Tasting event, we find the back trajectory of the sampled air masses, and attempt to reconstruct the human activity whose exhalations they contain. Each cloud sample is history stored in the material of the atmosphere, and can be read much like a soil core sample. It can locate us on both the long geological time scale (by the concentration of CO2 and other gasses,) and where in the seasonal cycle we are (by bioaerosols.) On a short timescale (72 hours,) locating the sources of emissions in the path of the air, we can find the places and people whose work and play released the odour that traveled to us in the air. Analysis of the microbial species in the sample can additionally provide a picture of the ecosystems they originated in.

By ingesting the samples the participants make themselves unprotected — and not politically distanced — from the complex networks of relations that enabled the pollution. The air we inhale and the social meaning of its make-up are given a physical form that can be viscerally experienced – making the air part of our perceptible experience, and a real part of our political discussion.