Paper short abstract:

This paper draws together scenes of conspiracy, "breathing-with." Across smell chemistry, graphic sf, and respiratory research, it amplifies techniques and forms for marking atmospheric qualities, relations, and differences. These are elements for composing a political crowd of/as breathers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper experiments with atmospheric abstractions through three scenes of conspiracy. "Conspiracy," say the etymologists, derives from the Latin _conspirare_, (_com_ "together" + _spirare_ "breathe") denoting a breathing-with, a situation of intimately shared air in which one might find oneself emplaced, huddled together in a corner, whispering tactics, or holding breath and bodies close in a town square or university quad as tear gas settles. The conspiracy at play in this paper here is literal-figural, a political ecology and ecological politics of breathing-together, emergent in moments of doing and recognizing kinships and inequalities of capacities to inhale. Activating examples from such fields as smell chemistry, graphic sf, and respiratory research, this paper explicates and amplifies techniques and milieus for marking atmospheric qualities, relations, and differences, including the making of experimentally attuned bodies or equipment. Such techniques and scenes function as potential forms for conspiring, i.e., elements for composing a political crowd of/as breathers.