Air is a crucial, lifegiving medium—“the very medium that makes interaction possible,” to quote Tim Ingold (2012: 77). This may seem obvious, but for many (myself included), it was easy to forget until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. Spreading quickly through airborne droplets across the planet, the virus amplified our attention to the ambient air and multiplied the devices and strategies we used to manipulate it. HEPA filters were installed; masks were donned; gatherings were socially distanced. Gradually, this invisible but omnipresent element was recast from supporting player in the rhythmic drama of our everyday lives to the star of a new tragedy playing out on a global scale.
The dramatic potential of the air is also the focus of Chloe Kathleen Preedy’s Aerial Environments, but Preedy firmly situates this potential in the early modern period. In this well-researched and rigorously conceptualized book, she...
