The Air Quality Lens is a DIY attachment for smarthphone and point-and-shoot cameras that augments photographs with light leaks influenced by air quality. The lens localizes and taps into particulate matter sensors in its surroundings (e.g., the Sensor.community network), and uses this real-time data to generate light effects. The result is an interactive and ambiguous visualisation that indicates air quality in the area, but also functions as a tool for making exisiting citizen sensing networks visible.

The lens was developed for workshops on the topic of environmental justice and climate change with youngsters in Hasselt and Brussels. In these workshops, participants learned to build their own air quality lens, and then set out to explore the air quality in their environment.