The Comment “From environmental sensing to societal listening” has been published in Nature Sensors and selected for the cover of the journal’s September issue. The article stems from the collaboration among Milena Di Canio , who works on the cultural, narrative and communication dimension of projects at Sony CSL – Rome ; Filippo Gregoretti , multidisciplinary artist, musician and Professor at the Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples; Hiroaki Kitano , President and CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL) , Professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology , and a leading figure in artificial intelligence and robotics; and Vittorio Loreto , Professor of Physics of Complex Systems at Sapienza University of Rome , Director of Sony CSL – Rome , and a scientist whose work focuses on innovation, creativity and emergent phenomena.
The Comment addresses one of the central challenges of contemporary environmental governance: sensors, monitoring networks and data infrastructures can now capture environmental change with unprecedented precision, yet data alone are not enough. To support awareness and collective action, environmental signals need to become perceptible, interpretable and meaningful within the public sphere.
This is the basis of the concept of societal listening , proposed by the authors as the collective ability to perceive environmental signals, understand their implications and respond before they become emergencies. In this perspective, environmental sensing systems can be understood not only as technical devices, but as cultural interfaces : tools that connect scientific measurement, sensory experience, public imagination and institutional responsibility.
The reflection also draws on Ulysses’ Gates , presented on the occasion of the 2026 Venice Biennale as the first chapter of Climate-tides . The project originated from an idea by Ambassador Umberto Vattani , President of Venice International University and a key figure in the dialogue between culture, institutions and international relations, who gave rise to this first chapter dedicated to Venice, water, tides and the MOSE system as an invisible infrastructure of protection and listening.
Created by Filippo Gregoretti, Hiroaki Kitano and Vittorio Loreto , Ulysses’ Gates transforms more than a century of lagoon data, tidal records, environmental signals and data connected to the MOSE system into sound, music and generative images. The work, developed with the technical setup support of PROMU s.r.l., does not use data as an aesthetic material in itself, but as a way to make environmental change perceptible, shareable and capable of fostering awareness. The development of the cultural and narrative framework of Climate-tides / Ulysses’ Gates was accompanied by the work of Milena Di Canio , with the support of Yoko Honjo , Chief Administration & Communication Officer at Sony Computer Science Laboratories , in strengthening the cultural dimension of the project across its different stages.
The September cover of Nature Sensors visually reflects this idea: the image, connected to Ulysses’ Gates , was composed by the authors and designed by Alex Whitworth, from an original photograph of a Venetian “briccola”, combined with the presence of water and sound-frequency lines. The composition evokes the passage from environmental signal to its translation into a visible, audible and shared form.
The Comment is part of the broader path opened by Climate-tides , an art–science project dedicated to tides, climate change and new forms of listening to nature. Starting from Venice, a symbolic place where the relationship between city, water and infrastructures of protection acquires universal resonance, the project questions how societies can learn to listen to environmental signals before they become crises.
Nature Sensors
Commentary/editorial
Not applicable
From environmental sensing to societal listening
28-Aug-2026
The authors declare no competing interests.