Sessions of special interest for Art 

Cluster was originally proposed to ESA in 1982, was subject to a launch failure in 1996, but was rebuilt after great effort from the community and its four spacecraft were successfully launched in 2000. This session, centred around a new documentary about the mission, will discuss the story of Cluster, its science and some lessons learned. In particular it will include aspects of the making of documentary itself and the unique challenges and opportunities of telling the story of a mission that has a history spanning almost 50 years while also grappling with the creative process of communicating the esoteric nature of heliophysics/space plasma science to the broader public as well as the unique approaches employed by the documentary team.

This short course and workshop explore how visual beauty acts as gateway into complex scientific ideas. Designed for scientists, artists, designers, and communicators who want to move beyond “making things pretty” toward using beauty as a precise, intentional instrument. I will help you understand the “why” with a review of the cognitive science behind visual perception and attention. I will show you the translation into practical design and visual communication techniques, so you know the “how”. Via hands-on exercises and discussions, participants will learn practical strategies for integrating beauty with purpose and accuracy in their own work.  

Games have the power to ignite imaginations and place you in someone else’s shoes or situation, often forcing you into making decisions from perspectives other than your own. This makes them powerful tools for communication, through use in outreach, disseminating research, in education and teaching at all levels, and as a method to train the public, practitioners, and decision-makers in order to build environmental resilience.

Games can also inspire innovative and fun approaches to learning. Gamification and game-based approaches add an extra spark of engagement and interaction with a topic. Gaming technology (e.g. virtual reality) can transport and immerse people into new worlds providing fascinating and otherwise impossible experiences for learners.

In this session we welcome contributions from anyone who has used games, gaming technology, and/or game-based approaches in their research, their teaching, or public engagement activities.

Visit www.games4geoscience.wordpress.com to learn more about the session.

Science communication includes the efforts of natural, physical and social scientists, communications professionals, and teams that communicate the process and values of science and scientific findings to non-specialist audiences outside of formal educational settings. The goals of science communication can include enhanced dialogue, understanding, awareness, enthusiasm, influencing sustainable behaviour change, improving decision making, and/or community building. Channels to facilitate science communication can include in-person interaction through teaching and outreach programs, and online through social media, mass media, podcasts, video, or other methods. This session invites presentations by individuals and teams on science communication practice, research, and reflection, addressing questions like:

What kind of communication efforts are you engaging in and how are you doing it?
What are the biggest challenges or successes you’ve had in engaging the public with your work?
How are other disciplines (such as social sciences) informing understanding of audiences, strategies, or effects?
How do you spark joy and foster emotional connection through activities?
How do you allow for co-creation of ideas within a community?
How are you assessing and measuring the positive impacts on society of your endeavours?
What are lessons learned from long-term communication efforts?

This session invites you to share your work and join a community of practice to inform and advance the effective communication of earth and space science.

Modern-day challenges such as climate change, pollution, desertification, natural hazards, and species extinction demand urgent solutions. While science is often at the forefront of addressing these issues, art has traditionally been seen primarily as a source of entertainment. However, a growing community of artists and scientists is coming together to address these pressing concerns. Art, with its ability to evoke emotion, is a powerful tool for cognitive learning and delivering messages that reignite a sense of beauty and responsibility. Collaborations between scientists and artists are becoming essential in engaging people more deeply with environmental issues and promoting sustainable lifestyles. These interdisciplinary partnerships offer a unique way to communicate complex scientific topics to non-experts—particularly in the earth sciences, where public understanding can be fragmented or confused. Both scientific and artistic communities share a common interest and responsibility in raising awareness of planetary boundaries and the fragility of Earth's ecosystems. While traditional educational methods address these challenges, science-art collaborations create new pathways for research and dialogue, offering a humane and emotional context through artistic expression. However, this combination is no only about art communicating science. When the two come together on an equal playing field, new ideas and languages emerge. This session aims to explore these interdisciplinary conversations. By symbiotically blending STEM and the arts, we hope to foster discussions on how these disciplines can collaborate to explore, communicate, and pro-actively respond to the societal, economic, political, and environmental issues we face—ultimately driving more effective emotional response leading to action.

GeoVision Night offers a space to celebrate science beyond the lecture halls. An evening where geoscience meets music and art, and where we celebrate the creativity, diversity, and spirit of our community together.

"A journey through turbulence and climate change using multiple-art media" - this project proposes two artistic performances that build a strong emotional connection to two key topics within the Geosciences: turbulence in fluid dynamics and climate change. The first part of the project jointly leverages multiple-art media to trigger an emotional connection to how our actions today affect the climate that future generations will live in. We will express data on the recent and projected future climate and climate extremes in the form of music and moving image, engaging the audience through multiple senses. The second part of the project transforms real and simulated fluid dynamics data—governed by the Navier-Stokes equations—into music, movement, and visuals. Using both experimental measurements from the von Kármán setup at SPEC and numerical simulations. We would like to present the results of the first part of the project, in the form of an audiovisual performance, at a Townhall meeting during EGU 2026.
The performance will focus on the time delay between action and consequence: what we do today affects future generations. Decisions that we take today can force an undesirable climatic future on future generations, and limit their freedom of choice. A related theme is the disappearance of possibilities. When we make choices today which are not in line with minimising climate change, we are effectively making certain climatic futures less likely, or even impossible.
The target audience is broad, spanning most divisions of EGU, as we believe that the majority of EGU attendees has an interest for the ongoing human-driven changes in Earth’s climate system. The outcome that we hope to achieve is an emotional connection to the human relevance of climate change, beyond the scientific and quantitative understanding of climate change that many of EGU’s attendees likely already have. We indeed argue that music and visual art offer a compelling way to connect scientific understanding with emotional understanding. This is fully in line with EGU’s value to promote the use of geoscience knowledge for the benefit of humanity and the planet.