A collaborative research, participatory workshop and performance project developed with Plam Creative Studio and Luca Venturini in the framework of Festa dell'Aria 2023, curated by Basso Profilo and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.

Metabolic City Soundscape is an interactive audiovisual instrument built from air and noise pollution data collected across a defined area of Ferrara. The source data was drawn from Air Break — a network of 14 experimental monitoring stations installed across the city, each calculating a real-time air quality index based on the hourly concentration of five pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3 and CO. The research phase identified and recorded the sources responsible for those emissions — each with its own acoustic signature — and translated the resulting data into a custom musical composition, mapping the daily fluctuation of the index into MIDI notes and melodic texture.

The instrument consists of four physical controllers, each corresponding to a specific pollutant: particulate matter (PM2.5 + PM10), nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide. Buttons trigger audio and video samples recorded on location; encoders apply effects that interpret the character of each pollutant. The performance emerges from the simultaneous interaction of multiple players — a crowd playing the air, in real time, through the data it breathes.

A collaborative research, participatory workshop and performance project developed with Plam Creative Studio and Luca Venturini in the framework of Festa dell'Aria 2023, curated by Basso Profilo and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano.

Metabolic City Soundscape is an interactive audiovisual instrument built from air and noise pollution data collected across a defined area of Ferrara. The source data was drawn from Air Break — a network of 14 experimental monitoring stations installed across the city, each calculating a real-time air quality index based on the hourly concentration of five pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3 and CO. The research phase identified and recorded the sources responsible for those emissions — each with its own acoustic signature — and translated the resulting data into a custom musical composition, mapping the daily fluctuation of the index into MIDI notes and melodic texture.

The instrument consists of four physical controllers, each corresponding to a specific pollutant: particulate matter (PM2.5 + PM10), nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide. Buttons trigger audio and video samples recorded on location; encoders apply effects that interpret the character of each pollutant. The performance emerges from the simultaneous interaction of multiple players — a crowd playing the air, in real time, through the data it breathes.