Mission and Vision Statement
The AlloSphere Instrument and the Sensorium Project is a paradigm shift in scientific exploration and artistic discovery focusing on the arts as the main driver for unfolding complex systems, important for the next level of research needed to save the world oceans. We envision the collaboration of the artistic research of Newton Harrison’s Sensorium Ocean World Project with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin’s artistic/scientific research in building the AlloSphere instrument and software infrastructure as an intricate and intertwined collaboration that utilizes the best practices of arts research, integrating artist Robert Rauschenberg’s concept of assemblage and composer/architect Iannis Xenakis’s concept of composing complex systems with 21st century science and technology innovation.
World oceans research is a multi-dimensional complex problem that involves many layers of data that must be integrated in such a way that new and creative answers to questions regarding the ocean’s sustainability will unfold. Currently most scientific research views these questions in a single and siloed fashion. Applying the artistic concept of assemblage, gathering all of the data and having a way to display and interact with that data in a spatiotemporal system, will facilitate tackling world oceans research holistically.
The artistic concept of narrative is of paramount importance in understanding and assimilating this data intuitively, see, hearing and interacting with the system at human scale. Humans have an uncanny sense of discovering anomalies through scanning and using all of the senses to perceive the information.
The Sensorium at its ultimate level is envisioned as a new AlloSphere structure dedicated solely to worlds ocean research and artistic narrative. A project like Sensorium in the AlloSphere unveils this vision.
In order to begin development of such a concept, which would be an endowment for the world oceans, we will begin with the prototype instrument, installation and narrative. The first installation prototype needed to create a 360-degree circular immersive portable instrument can eventually scale to the vision required for exhibitions and scientific discoveries.
2022
Special Thanks to the Harrison Family and the Center for the Study of the Force Majure