Standing on the bridge in the center of the AlloSphere, visitors suddenly find themselves immersed in San Francisco, at the Santa Cruz Pier, swimming in the sea, and with other locations as they witness and hear the effects of sea level rise and climate change.
The AlloSphere research facility at the California NanoSystems Institute at UC Santa Barbara is hosting a series of public screenings of “Sketches of Sensorium” inspired by Newton Harrison, an environmental artist who died in 2022.
The series is produced in partnership with Getty PST ART: Art and Science Collide, a regional event that explores the intersection of art and science. “Sketches of Sensorium” will premiere at the AlloSphere as a satellite to the UC Irvine Beall Center for Art + Technology exhibition “Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty.”
The AlloSphere sits inside Elings Hall at UCSB and is a three-story metal sphere in an echo-free chamber. It’s a large digital microscope connected to a super computer that allows researchers to be immersed in their data.
Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chief designer of the facility, directs research groups that use the AlloSphere to bring visualization and audio to data. Researchers can immerse themselves inside a human brain, the ocean and outer space.
Kuchera-Morin began working on the “Sketches of Sensorium” a few years ago with Harrison, who wanted to illustrate human impacts to ocean pollution and climate change and what needs to be done.
Kuchera-Morin said Harrison wanted to have people experience those impacts in order to leverage public policy and climate justice.
“What we’re trying to show, as was important to Newton, is that it’s not just that there’s nothing we can do about it; this is about time is running out, and we have to do something quick,” Kuchera-Morin said. “There are things that we could do to probably stay the tide of climate change. One of them would be to cure the wetlands and to really work with public policy climate justice, because these are the hardest things that are standing in our way, to get the politicians to understand that they have to make these changes.”
The idea for the AlloSphere came from 40 years of Kuchera-Morin’s research on media systems and design. The project aimed to take immersive virtual reality to the next level and reflect how people live.
“If we’re going to take immersive virtual reality research to the next level and do it not just for entertainment and but do it for science, then we’ve got to build something that’s more like how we live on the planet,” Kuchera-Morin said.
Dr. Gustavo Rincon, a postdoctoral researcher who’s been working with Kuchera-Morin on the AlloSphere since 2010, worked on the visuals for “Sketches of Sensorium.” Rincon said he has enjoyed seeing people’s reaction to the project who then get inspired to do more for the environment.
“I think that is really cool, and that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about the work, is that it’s not only making cool things, it’s really going out to the world and communicating, organizing, having discussions, and hopefully being lucky enough to partner up with an institution or a philanthropist that wants to help,” Rincon said.
Rincon said they’ve had people from all over the country come to see the project and even visitors from other countries such as Japan and Germany.
“Just hearing what they have to say and seeing their eyes and their body understand what’s going on is really humbling,” Rincon said. “I think that’s the hope for the piece. I feel like I’m a part of something bigger and not locked into doing some abstract research that no one’s ever going to see or hear or feel.”
Dr. Myungin Lee and his team in the Immersive Media Design Lab at the University of Maryland College Park worked on the project as a graduate researcher analyzing data from NASA on the ocean and then helped to visualize and sonify that data. Lee recently became a father and said the work and bringing awareness to climate change and sea level rise is even more important to him now.
“We’re responsible to maintain our ocean and ecosystem for our next generation, and their next generation,” Lee said.
Lee said using art to express scientific data can help get the information out in a way that audiences can understand.
“When people are walking out from the AlloSphere, they now have their own voices and insight, which will lead to bigger decisions and policy changes,” Lee said. “Through the artistic experience we are delivering to the general audience, eventually we’re expecting that to make our world better.”
Kuchera-Morin said she hopes people take away how important arts and humanities is to education — and the world.
“People have forgotten about what the arts and humanities means to the world; they’re not just anecdotal,” Kuchera-Morin said. “It’s not just a bunch of artists playing around or humanists that are studying dead cultures. It is the lifeblood of who and what we are, and we can be just as mathematical.”
The AlloSphere will be open to the public for “Sketches of Sensorium” every second Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and the fourth Saturday from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. until Dec. 7. A closing symposium will be held at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and the AlloSphere.
The experience is free to the public. Click here to reserve a time to visit.
