Sketches of Sensorium

Visitors stand on a narrow bridge inside a dark sphere scattered with stars, facing an enormous glowing Earth whose oceans are streaked with bright magenta data, as if the planet were showing its pulse.
A long walkway runs into the heart of a vast metal sphere, its curved walls washed in shifting blue, violet, and green projections, a few small figures silhouetted at the far end.
Title
Sketches of Sensorium
Artist
Newton Harrison
Center for the Study of the Force Majeure
Date
2024–2025
Description
An immersive installation built from core elements of Sensorium for the World Ocean, the long-term project of the late environmental artist Newton Harrison (1932–2022), directed by Joshua Harrison with Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin. It premiered in 2024 at the AlloSphere, a three-story spherical research instrument in the California NanoSystems Institute at UC Santa Barbara, as a satellite to the UC Irvine Beall Center's Getty PST ART exhibition Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty, and ran by reservation into April 2025. With an original spatialized composition and an interactive data world, it turns climate and ocean-health data from the Ocean Health Index of the Halpern Lab at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management into a multisensory experience, modeling how deepwater fishing, atmospheric particulates, weather, and other natural and human forces interact to shape the ocean, along with the political, economic, and social pressures upon it. True to Harrison's intent, it aims to leave audiences with a sense of hope. A project of the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure with Virtual Planet Technologies, Almost Human Media, and the AlloSphere Research Group.
Artwork Type
Installation
Digital / New Media
Dataset / Visualization
Materiality
Digital / Electronic Media
Audio / Sound
Light
Climate & Ecology Themes
Oceans and Coasts
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Air and Atmosphere
Concepts
Speculative Futures and Imagination
More-than-Human Relations
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Open Ocean
Methods & Approaches
Art and Science Collaboration
Data Visualization
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Location
AlloSphere Research Facility, California NanoSystems Institute (Elings Hall), UC Santa Barbara, California
Geographic Scope
International / Global
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
allosphere.ucsb.edu
Affiliated Organizations
Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty
Center for the Study of the Force Majeure
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
UC Santa Cruz
Media
Visitors stand on a narrow bridge inside a dark sphere scattered with stars, facing an enormous glowing Earth whose oceans are streaked with bright magenta data, as if the planet were showing its pulse.Newton Harrison and the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure, Sketches of Sensorium 1
A long walkway runs into the heart of a vast metal sphere, its curved walls washed in shifting blue, violet, and green projections, a few small figures silhouetted at the far end.Newton Harrison and the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure, Sketches of Sensorium 2