Public-engagement projects which see artists and scientists collaborate together in some way have become increasingly popular, with growing evidence that such projects, through a variety of methods, contribute to the development of society . classifies such collaborations into the following categories: I.

scientists collaborating with artists on common projects resulting in both scientific discoveries and the production of artworks

Space is far from completely empty; it is pervaded with very tenuous plasmas such as the solar wind that streams off of the Sun. Earth's intrinsic magnetic field acts as an obstacle to this wind and results in a magnetosphere, protecting us from much of this harmful ionising radiation. However, the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere is highly complex and dynamic, resulting in phenomena which affect the space- and ground-based technology we increasingly rely upon in modern life such as electrical grids, GPS (Global Positioning System) and weather forecasts. These effects are known as space weather and have been recognised as a potential risk to our everyday lives ; however, a large fraction of the general population is not aware of this .

One way in which solar wind energy and momentum are transferred into and around magnetospheres is through plasma waves. The spatial and temporal scales where the weak plasma can largely be treated as a single conducting fluid dictated by magnetohydrodynamics necessitates plasma waves to fall within the ultra-low frequency (ULF) regime, with frequencies from fractions of millihertz to 1 Hz. Of course this does not lie within the human auditory range; however, simply by dramatically speeding up the playback of satellite observations it is possible to make our ULF wave measurements audible. converted perturbations in magnetic field data (which move similarly to the plasma itself due to the frozen-in condition within magnetohydrodynamics) taken at geostationary orbit into an audio dataset which is now publicly available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . This has already been used as a tool in exploratory citizen science with schools, as detailed by the authors, but could lend itself to artistic uses also.

How this audible version of scientific data, or “sounds of space”, could potentially be used in the creation of art was primarily informed by the sounds themselves. They surprisingly did not typically take on the musical quality somewhat expected by the researchers who study discrete frequencies and resonances within Earth's magnetosphere, but instead they conveyed a sense of dynamism and variety as well as having a somewhat cacophonous nature. While the audible dataset described in was comprehensive enough in order to undertake science, for the purpose of creating art there was redundancy. Therefore to reduce the amount of data, only the time-differenced stereo summary files were used, averaging these over all spacecraft to result in only one audio file per year. Through an article in The Conversation , republished by Newsweek, Daily Mail and Space.com amongst others, online comments using SoundCloud on what people thought random periods of the data “sounded like” were solicited. While the accuracy and precision of SoundCloud comments' time-tagging meant it could not be used as a means of event identification for scientific research, it did result in the wide range of 85 unique responses (from 151 comments) that are shown in Fig. . These reflections on the sounds planted the idea of their usage as sound effects in films, ultimately resulting in the SSFX (Space Sound Effects) Short Film Festival project. In the following sections we detail the various phases and audiences engaged through the project from filmmakers and exhibitors to filmgoers, presenting findings on their motivations for getting involved and what impact the project had on them.

Several complementary approaches were taken to get the SSFX films more widely seen as part of film festival and events programmes. As noted earlier, we paid the submissions fees for film festivals (limited to the UK only due to funding usage restrictions) identified by the filmmakers. In addition to this, we advertised the free shorts and/or anthology through film exhibitor networks recommended by our judges (including the various British Film Institute – BFI – Film Audience Network hubs and the Independent Cinema Office) and approached several key film exhibitors, enquiring about either arranging one-off screenings of the anthology or showing the shorts before their features. This generally fed into their aims of developing audiences for and increasing access to a diversity of film content for local independent filmgoing communities. We also liaised with a few science-focused events such as science festivals, either through open calls or following contact with us, about integrating the films into their programme in some way.

Table  details all the events which featured SSFX film screenings, where these have been grouped by initiative, since in several cases multiple screenings of the same or different films occurred. There was a large overrepresentation of UK-based events (68±10 %) compared to all film festivals globally (8 %, p=3.5×10-17), as listed in . This was in part due to funding usage restrictions limiting which festivals could be applied for; however, we also note that many film festivals aim to highlight the works of filmmakers from their own country.

Events have been classified as either art, art–science or science, with the distribution of event types shown in Fig. . Art events denote those with no clear association with science whatsoever; science events indicate those with no explicit link to art; and art–science is used to describe events with a stated connection between the two subjects. There were substantially more art events than science ones (p=0.012, αBonf=0.017), which constituted the only significant difference between SSFX event types. Excluding science events, art–science (41±11 %) was overrepresented compared to all film festivals globally that contain some mention of space or science (11 %, p=6.1×10-5). Both of these results reflect some of the struggles faced in the second phase of the SSFX project – science event programmers were largely uninterested in art–science, since their audiences are already highly engaged with science and not necessarily with art, whereas many film event programmers we approached struggled to understand the concept of the project, thinking the films were aimed at science audiences rather than being open to judge them as films in their own right that happen to contain a scientific connection (i.e. their preconception was Type VI of , rather than Type V).

Figure  demonstrates that screenings predominantly occurred as part of pre-existing events rather than as bespoke ones (p=1.9×10-4), indicating SSFX was largely successful at infiltrating science into the film world, and there was a fairly even split in events arranged by filmmakers and scientists. We note that filmmakers were more successful at infiltrating art events (71±14 % of all their events) than the scientist ones (29±15 %), though this difference was not strictly statistically significant when accounting for multiple comparisons (p=0.021, αBonf=0.017). Primarily it was an individual short film or subset of the collection of shorts which was exhibited at events rather than the full anthology film (p=8.8×10-4), which we struggled to convince film programmers to incorporate into events despite advice from film industry collaborators that this might be an attractive proposition. Of the individual shorts Astroturf was the most successful, though the only statistically significant differences (αBonf=0.0024) in the number of distinct events and initiatives by film were between Astroturf and both Names and Numbers (p=5.0×10-4) and Saturation (p=1.9×10-4). We note that neither of these latter two films' festival submission fees were funded by the project, and in the case of Saturation a number of exhibitors expressed that they could not screen it at their family-friendly events due to the potentially upsetting medical imagery (edited clips from Noise removing the strong language and drug usage were however able to be used). In terms of the total number of screenings, Astroturf had significantly more than all the other shorts, though this was purely due to being selected for the touring SCINEMA International Science Film Festival (and associated community screenings) across Australia.

Film festival acceptance rates are typically ∼5 % , with the largest festivals being ≲1 % . While we do not have concrete numbers on exactly how many festivals the filmmakers submitted to, given the budget and average submission cost for short films , we estimate around 30 total submissions. This means that the 17 festival successes constitutes an impressive acceptance rate across the shorts of 57±11 %, significantly higher than expected. This perhaps reflects the quality of the art–science films that resulted from the project. We also note that given that the filmmakers were submitting their shorts to festivals independently and that all found success, this lends confidence beyond just an individual case study that this model of infiltrating science into cultural events can indeed work.

We generally relied on the event organisers to attract audiences, since they have built-in audience bases from their previous activities. Given that we were largely infiltrating existing events, this limited the evaluations that could be implemented, especially as at many events (especially the international ones) no filmmakers or scientists from the project were physically present. Therefore, evaluation data were typically collected only at bespoke SSFX events, and several methods were employed: a ball and bin question upon arrival assessing prior knowledge, graffiti walls at post-film receptions assessing their motivations and takeaways, and an online survey 3 weeks later for those who left contact details. Filming by a third party at the SSFX Short Film Festival (event ab) captured additional qualitative data. Given that these events where evaluation was possible tended to show all the shorts (either individually or via the anthology), we are unable to comment on whether certain SSFX films were more impactful on attendees than others.

As part of a recent public dialogue, found in a survey of 1010 people representative of the UK adult population (by gender, age, social grade, education, dependants, geographic region and human settlement type) that 48±2 % have never heard of space weather before. We therefore asked audiences upon arrival at events whether they had heard of space weather before, via a ball and bin method where attendees were instructed to put a ball in either the “yes” or “no” bin. The results from the individual events where we asked this question are displayed as the light-blue bars in Fig. , indicating levels greater than in the public dialogue (orange). Combining the data from all these SSFX events gives an overall result (dark blue) of 76±5 %, which constitutes 2.95±0.20 times more likely (the odds ratio) to have never heard of space weather than the general population (p=9.2×10-8). Therefore an atypical audience was attracted to these events in terms of prior knowledge. Note that these results came exclusively from art–science events, and arguably one might expect an even greater overall proportion of people to be unaware of the field at the art events that SSFX infiltrated.

Another way we assessed whether the project attracted new audiences was by asking what motivated them to attend. At two art–science events (ab and ac) this was collected via open-ended graffiti walls, where nine responses were recorded, which can be found in Appendix . Through thematic analysis it was possible to group all of these as being due to an interest in science (e.g. “love science”), film (e.g. “I like weird films.”) or specifically the project (e.g. “interesting concept”), where the quotes displayed serve as representative illustrative examples from different respondents. Follow-up online surveys after several events (f, h, aa, ab and ac) specifically asked in a closed question whether attendees had been attracted due to regular attendance at science events or film events or if it was specifically this event that had interested them. They could select as many options as were applicable. Given this yielded only 12 responses, we opt to combine the data from both methods, omitting event aa, since out of those events surveyed it was the only science event as well as the only pre-existing one. The overall results are shown in Fig. . Repeating the same analysis as with filmmakers' motivations revealed that significantly more people attended due to being filmgoers or specifically being interested in the project (F∪P) at 78±12 % compared to attending science events often (S) at 33±13 % (p=0.0023, αBonf=0.0083). This therefore provides further evidence that SSFX was able to attract substantial non-science audiences, placing it as comparable to some of the most successful art–science events across different art forms at reaching new audiences cf.. Again we note that since this analysis pertained only to art–science events, it is highly likely at the art events SSFX infiltrated that even fewer people would have exhibited science interests given the complete lack of a science connection at these events and the existing research into the motivations behind film festival attendance .

We assessed the learning outcomes of attendees through the follow-up surveys, asking in open questions if they recalled the event's theme and why this topic is studied or important. The full list of responses is given in Appendix . As shown in Fig. , the majority (83±14 %, p=0.039) correctly recalled that the event concerned the sounds of space or provided more specific answers. Interestingly most (67±17 %) thought this area was important due to the inherent value of science or intellectual curiosity (e.g. “It helps us to understand the universe, physics, and gives us a clearer idea of the world around us.”) rather than citing space weather (25±16 %), though this majority was not statistically significant and neither were the differences between responses. As far as we are aware there is little published research into the recollection of the themes and key messages of public-engagement events by attendees in follow-up surveys. However, in comparison with studies into the recollection of television campaigns e.g. and the so-called Memory Chain Model suggests that the fraction quoting space weather would be deemed successful, while the recollection of the event's overall theme would be considered extremely high. Also, given the atypical non-science audience, the fact that many attendees took away from the event the value of fundamental scientific research was an unanticipated but very welcome impact.

In terms of the impact on attendees, at two art–science events (ab and ac) we asked via graffiti wall what (if anything) they had gained or taken away from the event. Most of the 16 responses, displayed in full in Appendix  with representative examples from different respondents shown here, could be broadly categorised using grounded theory as concerning the science (e.g. “amazing space sounds I want to learn more about”), perception of sound (e.g. “people hear differently”) or art or film (e.g. “grown an interest in filmmaking”), with the proportions of each shown in Fig.  demonstrating a near-even split between the three. Other miscellaneous takeaways included aspects of science communication, humanity and specific (non-science) themes raised in the films. Furthermore, at the SSFX Short Film Festival (event ab) a selection of people were interviewed during the reception by a third party, with some of the responses available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPa7avaksFI (last access: 30 January 2020). The most common point that emerged (again analysed using grounded theory) was that attendees really enjoyed the broad range of interpretations of the same space sounds which were expressed in the different films. Others commented on how the concept of the festival was an interesting approach to bringing scientific ideas to a wider audience, that they had learned about and gained an interest in the science behind the sounds, and that it attracted a diverse group of people with a lot of interaction particularly in the reception. On this latter point, it was anecdotally noted at most of the events that the diversity of audiences by gender and ethnicity appeared much greater than compared to typical physics engagement events, though this was not captured quantitatively. Respondents in the follow-up survey also noted other takeaways from attending which we again have coded using grounded theory and provide illustrative example responses from different participants here: enjoying or being inspired by the event (e.g. “Really enjoyed the enthusiasm of the speaker and the topic of the films mixed with science”), the creativity or diversity of films (e.g. “how each filmmaker found the humanity in sounds from space”), meeting and hearing from both scientists and filmmakers (e.g. “It was interesting to meet some of the people involved in both the science and filmmaking.”), and the importance or relevance of the scientific research (e.g. “Genuine and relevant science research and knowledge is vital and underused in the film industry”). Of the responses which did not fit into any of these themes, one person said that they had developed an interest in art events by attending (“I will definitely look at the [arts venue] Rich Mix website more for future events.”), while another found the anthology film to be “very strange”, which may or may not be a good thing. One respondent wrote in detail on their thoughts of the virtues of this type of art–science collaboration:

Taking raw data out of context and using it as a key creative element in the creation of art is a way of providing a fresh look at a scientific inquiry. Art can be a mirror whose reflection can reset context and provide the listener with a different perspective than might otherwise be encountered. The result of this competition has been a number of submissions that stimulate a wider audience to think about how science is more than just the collection of raw data and that understanding can come from looking at results from a new vantage.

The SSFX (Space Sound Effects) Short Film Festival was an art–science collaboration project aimed at infiltrating space science into culture through the medium of film. In particular it invited the usage of sonified satellite data of plasma waves in Earth's magnetosphere, a key component within space weather, as key creative elements.

The first audience the project aimed to engage with independent filmmakers through challenging them to use these space sounds to create short films. Through partnership with film industry experts and organisations, an international film festival was run, adopting many of the standard practises within the sector to lend authenticity and legitimacy to the project. A formative evaluation of people who registered interest with the project during the submission revealed that we successfully hooked the filmmaking community, though most who engaged also had a general interest in science. Seven very different films were selected for screening. Feedback from these filmmakers highlighted that they relished the creative freedom afforded to them in interpreting the sounds and their usage within their works; hence very open criteria are not only enticing to filmmakers but also enable a broad range of artworks to be produced. Another important aspect of the project was the support of the filmmakers and the championing of their films after the initial festival, which had the mutual benefit of raising the profile of the filmmakers whilst also sharing the underlying science more widely.

The second audience was film programmers and exhibitors in trying to infiltrate the produced short films into existing events. While an anthology film packaging all the shorts together through a science-based narrative was produced, we struggled to get this shown and found much greater success with the individual short films. Filmmakers were best placed to submit their own works to film festivals following the standard method, with monetary support from the scientists, as they have a better idea of which festivals would be most appropriate. However, scientists were still able to play a role in representing the full suite of shorts for consideration at other sorts of film events. Both of these approaches led to SSFX infiltrating more art events than science ones, as desired, though a substantial number of art–science events also occurred.

The project ultimately also aimed to raise awareness of the science to atypical audiences through the use of the films. While audience evaluation proved challenging due to SSFX films typically sitting within larger events organised by others, some evaluation was able to be done at mostly bespoke art–science events. This highlighted that attendees were much less aware of the topic of space weather than the general public and were much more likely to have attended due to an existing interest in film or specifically the concept of SSFX rather than having an existing science interest. This placed the project as comparable to some of the most successful art–science events across different art forms at reaching new audiences. Many different, and often unanticipated, impacts were had on attendees beyond simply learning about the science, which demonstrates the versatility of film as a form of art at provoking varied responses in audiences.

We therefore advocate that adopting a film festival model can result in creative art–science that fits within the many film-based cultural events around the world. This enables the power of cinema to be leveraged on audiences that do not normally engage with science, thus providing potential means of breaking beyond the scientific “echo chamber” in portraying the importance and relevance of scientific research.