HOLOSCENES / Little Boxes was a new art/science film short for Science On a Sphere® (SOS) co-created by Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera, Pablo N. Molina, and NightLight Labs with science and other advisors from across the country. It was co-commissioned thanks to a collaboration between EcoArts Connections and Science On a Sphere® (SOS), and premiered in partnership with Fiske Planetarium. It is one of the few projects in the world to commission artists to create science-informed, sustainability-focused, and arts-expressed films for SOS. Currently available in the SOS online catalog for free, the six-minute film can be seen by millions of people through the now 160+ SOS sites across the world.

The film project explored several questions

• “How can we feel climate change in our gut? …”
• “How does sheer beauty relate to devastation? …”
• “[How can] we appeal to emotion and focus on growing our empathic capacities? …”
• “Can climate change … inspire an evolution in our awareness through space and time?”
• “Can we socially evolve as quickly as we have transformed our Earth?”

The film project was based on the original live performance work of HOLOSCENES. The film version for SOS included the collaboration of Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera (concept, writing, and direction), immersive media artist/technologist Pablo N. Molina (creative producer and technology consultant), NightLight Labs (original animations and editorial), co-commissioners Shilpi Gupta (SOS) and Marda Kirn (EAC), and advisors from throughout the US including climate scientists, educators, SOS docents, a film producer and mobile home park youth.

The project also included a presentation at San Lazaro Park Properties mobile home/manufactured housing community, and several classes at the University of Colorado-Boulder taught by Molina, and a panel discussion at Fiske Planetarium with Jan, Molina, Dr. Elizabeth Weatherhead, Gupta, and Kirn.

The original version of HOLOSCENES was inspired by a photo taken by photojournalist Daniel Berehulak during the widespread flooding in Pakistan in 2010, the earlier flood
of Hurricane Katrina, and the evolving story of water in the 21st century. It includes every day gestures collected from people from around the world, exquisitely performed and filmed in a human-sized aquarium as water rises and falls.

As Jan commented: “Several scientists working on climate issues helped me understand that climate change is a mirror. At this point, the climate crisis is as much about us — the behavioral and cognitive science behind how we make decisions, think and act in the long-term, and feel empathy — as it is about CO2 or melting glaciers…Climate science also makes clear: our biosphere, our communities, our daily behaviors are all part of a single, deeply-connected system. How might we act accordingly?”

As Jan quoted in a flyer accompanying the original HOLOSCENES:

“When you’re finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people.”

— Astronaut Frank Borman, Dec 23, 1968

Science On a Sphere® (SOS) is a visual display system that uses computers and video projectors to display planetary data onto a six foot diameter sphere, analogous to a giant animated globe. Researchers at NOAA developed Science On a Sphere® as an educational tool to help illustrate Earth System science in a way that is intuitive and captivating to people of all ages. SOS is used to enhance informal educational programs in science centers, universities, museums, and other facilities across the world. Typically, SOS displays animated images of atmospheric storms, climate change, ocean temperatures, the surfaces of Earth, Mars, the Sun, shifting tectonic plates, spreading earthquakes and tsunamis, and other scientific data visualizations.

HOLOSCENES / Little Boxes Science Advisory Group

• Dave Cuomo – Science Interpretation Program Supervisor, Pacific Science Center (Seattle, WA)
• Maurice Henderson – Education and Public Outreach, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD)
• Keri Maxfield – Art Director, Nurture Nature Center (Easton, PA)
• Justin McAfee – Technology Programs Manager, Science Central (Fort Wayne, IN)
• Hilary Peddicord – SOS Education Specialist, CIRES (Boulder, CO)
• Beth Russell – SOS Operations Manager, CIRES (Boulder, CO)
• Kathryn Semmens – Science Director, Nurture Nature Center (Easton, PA)
• Michael Starobin – Founder, Creative Director, 1AU Global Media, LLC and Senior Producer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Washington DC)
• Pieter Tans – Chief Scientist, NOAA Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group (Boulder, CO)
• Elizabeth Weatherhead – Senior Scientist and Fellow, Jupiter (Boulder, CO)

HOLOSCENES / Little Boxes Youth Advisory Group (with ages in 2019)

San Lazaro Park Properties (Boulder, CO)

• Ariana (21)
• Camila (9)
• Kevin (11)
• Maria (11)
• Michelle (12)
• Yasmeen (10)