Field Poetry - an Environment-Responsive Sound Box
​ Max MSP Patch and Arduino Circuit Design/Making by Yifeng Yvonne Yuan
special thanks to Roger Lin for the acrylic board, hot glue gun and circuit demonstration.
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Field Poetry is an interactive generative sound box that transforms environmental data into a living sonic experience. Inspired by the subtle interactions between nature and sound, the piece functions like a digital wind chime—an object that breathes with its surroundings and reflects the ever-shifting rhythms of the environment.
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I live in Santa Barbara, California, a coastal town where the mountains rise to the left and the endless ocean stretches to the right. I was drawn to the poetics of nature—the wind patterns, the fluctuating humidity after rainfall, and the subtle shifts in light and warmth. Field Poetry captures these nuances, transforming real-time environmental data into an evolving soundscape.
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The core of Field Poetry consists of a custom-built soundbox embedded with an Arduino Uno and sensors that collect real-time environmental data:
Microphone: Captures ambient sound from the surrounding environment.
Light Sensor: Measures light intensity and affects the brightness or frequency band of a bandpass filter.
Temperature Sensor: Maps to the overall clock, influencing the density of sonic events.
Humidity Sensor: Controls the delay time of sine tones and overall reverb effects.
It also has a loop function building in.
All collected data is processed in real-time using Max/MSP, with custom patches designed to map environmental variables directly to sonic parameters such as pitch, timbre, duration, and spatialization.