SSFX (Space Sound Effects) Short Film Festival: Using the film festival model to inspire creative art-science and reach new audiences
Martin O. Archer

TL;DR
The SSFX Short Film Festival creatively used space sound recordings to engage diverse audiences with space weather science through art and film, fostering dialogue beyond traditional scientific outreach.
Contribution
This project innovatively combined space science, sound art, and film festival models to reach new audiences and promote science-art dialogue.
Findings
Successfully engaged non-science audiences worldwide
Produced seven award-winning short films from space sounds
Demonstrated art's potential to enhance science communication
Abstract
The ultralow frequency analogues of sound waves in Earth's magnetosphere play a crucial role in space weather, however, the public is largely unaware of this risk to our everyday lives and technology. As a way of potentially reaching new audiences, SSFX made 8 years of satellite wave recordings audible to the human ear with the aim of using it to create art. Partnering with film industry professionals, the standard processes of international film festivals were adopted by the project in order to challenge independent filmmakers to incorporate these sounds into short films in creative ways. Seven films covering a wide array of topics/genres (despite coming from the same sounds) were selected for screening at a special film festival out of 22 submissions. The works have subsequently been shown at numerous established film festivals and screenings internationally. These events have…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
