olablog: The Allosphere: can vague be valuable?

My friend Helena, who also takes the STS Governing Emerging Technologies class, recently sent me this image:

It made me chuckle, then sigh, and then think. This time last year I was enjoying winter warmth in the Californian sun on my year abroad at The University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). This is not irrelevant information intended to make you green with envy, no, I bring it up because UCSB is home to the AlloSphere. "The Allowhat!?" I hear you cry. Fret not, all shall be revealed.

The Allosphere

The Allosphere is a one of a kind, immersive, three-story, sphere-shaped facility/instrument used to represent complex data. Basically it's a massive sphere with curved screens, 26 projectors and 55 speakers, which has a catwalk/bridge going through its centre for spectators to stand on whilst they absorb magnificent scientific simulations and artistic data visualisations.

Director JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Professor of Media Arts and Technology, and Music Dr. inside the Allosphere at UCSB. Image courtesy of The Santa Barbara Independent

Stunned or sceptical?

During my year at UCSB, there were two occasions on which general students were allowed into the Allosphere. In order for spectators to get the best viewing experience, groups were capped at an intimate 20 or so. I missed my first chance, not knowing it was first come first served. Who would have thought there'd be high demand for this state of the art experience? The second time, a few weeks before my voyage home, I was determined to make it. Half an hour of eagerness and a couple of canapés later, I found myself sporting a pair of $600 3D glasses, holding onto the Allosphere catwalk handrail, ready to be blown away.

And blown away I was. The very passionate director of the Allosphere JoAnn Kuchera-Morin talked us through a tour of the ancient Greek ruins that surrounded us, before switching us over to what seemed like a psychedelic trip through space. No matter where I looked, I had a never-ending view of particles that moved past me and around me to enchanting music. I left the sphere speechless, thinking something along the lines of "Wow! What even was that?! Technology is incredible!!!!!!!" but upon contemplating the cartoon Helena sent me, I can't help but think, "So what? What is this jaw-dropping facility actually bringing to the table?" (The table being the planet and its inhabitants...)

Upon doing some research, I found that the Allosphere is providing a multidisciplinary platform for some truly cutting edge projects. Through the collaboration of chemists, musicians, physicists, visual architecture artists, coders and engineers (to name but few), incredible ideas have come to life. Tissues have been seen as landscapes and blood vessels heard as music. Viewing the hydrogen bond through colour and sound coded atoms led to the creation of transparent solar cells for mobile devices. Flying through the cortex of a human brain via virtual reality helped in diagnosing neurological diseases. The multi-sensory, multidisciplinary magic of the Allosphere makes it possible. And who knows what else it could make possible in the future...

Funding prioritisation: the tangible v the unknown

With the Allosphere costing $3000 per hour to fire up, the question of funding comes up. Should this kind of money be going elsewhere? UCL's investment in proton beam therapy (PBT) springs to mind as a contrasting example, the total cost of which comes in at a healthy £150 million.

With PBT, funders know what they're buying. PBT is a type of radiotherapy used to destroy cancer cells. The high-energy precision beam of particles is particularly (pardon the pun) suited for treating complex childhood cancers but is also used for head and neck cancers. PBT offers reduced side effects (IQ loss, deafness, secondary cancers) and increases success rates. 5 years ago, anyone who was interested in PBT had to go abroad and now UCLH is one of two sites in England offering the treatment. (Source: NHS UCLH)

So, what should be prioritised: technologically titillating projects with unknown outcomes (Allosphere) or those that have specific intentions (PBT)?

I don't think the two need be mutually exclusive, and as for prioritisation, context is a key factor we need to take into account. It almost turns into an argument between short term and long term planning. In a context where there is a need for a currently unavailable treatment, I think projects such as PBT should be prioritised: there's a problem in the here and now, let's work on solving it. However, the future is full of unknown problems, and concurrently investing in projects like the Allosphere may well provide unknown future solutions. Science is full of surprises.

After all, when NASA was just a baby, who knew she would grow to be the mother of 6,300 everyday technologies. And I'm not just talking about shoe insoles and joysticks; computer microchips and the CAT scanner are among a list of things we have the Apollo 11 moon landing to thank for. According to The Telegraph, the circuits used in the Apollo Guidance Computer paved the way for the modern microchip, whilst the technology used to find faults in space components pioneered cancer-detection technology.

Possibilities for the wider community

Yet for Kuchera-Morin, the Allosphere is not about her becoming a hero and curing cancer. She has herself said, “It’s a good question: What is the point of all of this?” And in what followed, the thing that stood out to me was the focus on community and collaboration.
“One of the things that the Allosphere can do is make the things we do in this Ivory Tower clear to the community that surrounds us.” (From an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent)

The uninitiated can find scientific jargon inaccessible, making the friendliest developments in science and technology appear intimidating. Show them the same seemingly complicated and incomprehensible research in the form of virtual reality, surround sound, multisensory immersion, and I imagine things get a little bit clearer for everyone. Costing as much as it does, it's rather unlikely Allosphere will be making it to a classroom near you any time soon BUT the fact that the Allosphere exists means that it could be possible in the future. From chalkboard, to interactive whiteboard, to Allosphere! It could happen. If anything, Hollywood has already shown interest.

Collaboration as the vague path to Cooperation

We live in an interdependent political, economic and environmental system, so the problems we face are just as global and interconnected. In January 2016, there was an article in the Guardian about experts announcing climate change disaster as the biggest threat to the global economy. One year later things aren't looking much peachier with the White House full of climate change deniers.

I think that now, more than ever, it is crucial that people from different backgrounds, with varying beliefs talk to each other, including in academia. The United States college system is far more interdisciplinary than ours in the UK, but the Allosphere takes it to a whole new level at UCSB, bringing together bioengineers and musicians, nanophysicists and artists, coders and communicators, to combine their intuition and insight for the sake of discovery. And even if they don't discover anything scientific at all (unlikely, see paragraph 5), they may just discover something socio-political. How? I don't know. But that's the point. Vagueness can be scary, but it can also be exciting.

I believe that it is the unpredictability of the creative process and interdisciplinary collaboration that makes funding projects like the Allosphere worth it. Who knows? In all the vagueness, it might even bring us one step closer to world peace.