Oriana Persico's pneumOS Turns Ravenna's Air Data into Music at Expo 2025 Osaka

Since April 12, 2025, Oriana Persico's cybernetic organ pneumOS has been breathing at the Italy Pavilion of Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. The work transforms air quality data from Ravenna into music and lung movements through five sound membranes and a robotic diaphragm. Commissioned by the city of Ravenna and supported by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), the piece is the third datapoietic work by Persico and her late partner Salvatore Iaconesi (who died on July 18, 2022). It uses data from three weather stations on the Darsena dock, compared with national and European air quality standards (ISPRA and AEQI), to generate an 'Open Source Grammar of the City's Breath.' When air is clean, the respiratory sac rhythm is calm and deep; as pollution increases, breathing accelerates and sound becomes sharp. For Expo, an LED ring inside the lung sac adds light pulses. The work is placed in the 'Piazza' of the Italy Pavilion, designed by Mario Cucinella Architects, where it dialogues with the classical Farnese Atlas sculpture. Persico sees pneumOS as a new cyborg that connects humans to the environment, fostering an aesthetic of relation and complexity. After Expo, the work will return to Ravenna for permanent installation.