Throw water at a electric blue flame, then drink it as if it were clean.

Brimstone: burning rock. This historical name of the sulfur pinpoints the flammable nature of the element. The crystalline solid catches fire quickly, burning bright blue as it reacts with oxygen to give off sulfur oxide compounds into the air.

The term “fire and brimstone”, used heavily in the Bible and culturally in violent preaching from particular sects of Christianity comes from the smell of sulphur in the air after lightning would strike the ground, a sign of God’s firey anger.

Sulfur too burns the back of the throat, lungs, and eyes in its form of gaseous hydrogen sulfide, H2S. Brim-air: H2S quickly goes from smelling of eggs to odorless as increases in concentration, moving from a burning sensation to a lack of consciousness[1]. People suffering from exposure to H2S note moving through the world in a state of fog, a chemical pixilation of their daily life.

This in-progress project is beginning to historical sulfur mining practices and sulfur’s role in contemporary air pollution.

In Brim-air,  the history of sulfur mining is intertwined with contemporary sulfur air pollution. An archival film depicting the Frasch sulfur mining process is projected onto a sheet of metal with a speaker system built into the armature beneath. On the metal is a puddle of egg-scented hydrosol, a olfactory marker of sulfur air pollution. As the film plays, a music score programmed from air pollution concentration data from local air quality monitors begins to cause resonance waves on the surface of the water. The higher the pollution, the louder the sound, and more disturbance to the image projected.

As the sulfur toxicity moves throughout history from waste water to air pollution, so too does the sulfur in Brim-air aerosolize from hydrosol to aerosol through the vibrating metal. The result is auditory and olfactory noise: subtle shifts in sound and scent that confuse and distract one’s perceptions.