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Snoösphere

2017–

Snoösphere by Lull Studio premières in The Big Anxiety: festival of arts + science + people in September 2017, at UNSW Galleries Sydney. Our virtuoso team of collaborating artists includes Dawn-joy Leong, Frank Feltham and James Curtis, Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris, Marty Jay, and Jonathon Bolitho with Hakea.

Snoösphere is an expansive, responsive art installation where audiences can roam, touch and explore. It's designed and created with autistic artists, who have a unique, enhanced sense of how spaces perform sensorially and energetically. Its immersive sound, vision, aroma, and touch- and heat-controlled elements affect the entire sensorium, pushing boundaries of engagement and arts access while gaining insight into neuro-diversity.

A gallery-based living lab, Snoösphere designs forward to a fully networked world based on advanced technological and synthesized communication. While the noösphere is understood as the future planetary sphere of mind, Snoösphere additionally promotes a radically embodied and environmental consciousness.

noösphere noun a stage of evolutionary development governed by consciousness, the mind, and the perceptual interactions of all life
snoösphere innovation a sensory futureland

Snoösphere is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; the Neilson Foundation; UNSW Galleries; and NIEA, Australia's National Institute for Experimental Arts.

EVOLVING DESIGN PROCESS

Design is partly influenced by Dutch “snoezelen” sense-stimulation environments and experimental modelling in mental health spaces. (See e.g. Lull Studio's AAIU.)

Renowned autistic artist Dr Dawn-joy Leong led our three 2016–17 design input workshops with autistic participants of all ages and skill sets in Sydney and Singapore. Key participants have included Rachel Hillary Kotow, Theodore Eu, Husnah Jamaludin, Eric (iautistic.com), Timothy Ng, and Mathew Gilmore. Photos and video at the links below.

Lindsay and Ed completed autism awareness training at Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), where Ed's Visionary designs are being used in videosynthesis workshops for participants on the autism spectrum.

In March the book Temporal Spatial Practices was launched by Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in cooperation with Sydney University, with guest speaker Penelope Seidler. Lindsay contributed documentation of his sensory installation You Are Hear with Amanda Cole. It's edited by Claudia Perren and Sarah Breen Lovett, with whom Lindsay investigates snoezelen concepts in Perception in Architecture and Aural Vision.

Dawn-joy is the subject of this recent article in Singapore's Straits Times. We're delighted to have Dawn-joy leading our autistic engagement, and will see her next at the installation in September and at some events (TBA) inside Snoösphere.

Thrilled to be joined by Jonathon Bolitho of Hakea studio, who will design and fabricate our installation of interactive "icebergs".

We are chosen as a pick of The Big Anxiety by Sydney Morning Herald!!

Our festival page is now online here... getting excited for the prèmiere...

The project is a hit of the Festival! See below for a growing list of all the media attention it is getting.

(Updates will be posted to this page and our news.)


 

Events

After Dark, artist talk in Snoösphere: Elena Knox and Dawn-joy Leong in conversation

Ixi Avila's Anxiety Women's Circle, a 2-hour workshop in Snoösphere

Seminar in Snoösphere: Anxiety and Young People, led by Professor Ron Rapee (OA)

Festival launch party

Press

Snoösphere feature on Lateline, ABC TV

Snoösphere on radio 2SER

Snoösphere in Artlink

Snoösphere in Concrete Playground, and on their 'Best Things To Do' lists for the week and month

Snoösphere on ABC News

Snoösphere in Limelight magazine

Snoösphere on worldwide AFP 'Image of the Day' list: e.g. Singapore Straits Times; Egypt Today; AVAX News; MSN Lifestyle; VOA Indonesia

Snoösphere on ArtsHub

Snoösphere in Sydney Arts Guide

Snoösphere in The Daily Telegraph's Pictures of the Week

...and some super-popular Facebook posts from BuzzFeed (350 shares, 96000 video views!) and Concrete Playground (550 likes, 342 comments, 33 shares)

Snoösphere on The Conversation, an in-depth long article about autism and the arts

Sensory Studies journal, events of note

Snoösphere features in Sydney Morning Herald's review of experimental arts festivals

Featured on Ella's list (top children's activities)

Slideshow of Snoösphere at My Sinchew

Links

#snoosphere on Instagram etc.

Take a video walkthrough of the Snoösphere night-garden, at our 2017 UNSW Galleries installation

A short video of the 1st Snoösphere design input workshop with autistic participants is here

A short video of the 2nd Snoösphere design input workshop with autistic participants is here

A short video of the 3rd Snoösphere design input workshop with autistic participants is here

Two of our workshop participants, Theodore Eu and Timothy Ng, talk about autistic response to Snoösphere

A recap in Chinese by Timothy Ng, participant in workshop 3 and in the final installation: we love Tim!