https://player.vimeo.com/video/46466558

The Cinema Snowglobe offers a magical handheld experience featuring moving imagery and video.  It marries the traditional snowglobe form with a cutting-edge video display, sensing, and embedded computing technology — a serious upgrade from white plastic snow settling on a cartooned landscape.  When shaken, Cinema Snowglobes create a compelling and involving experience, transporting viewers into a tiny world, like a personal crystal ball.

Cinema Snowglobes can take you on a virtual journey across the Golden Gate Bridge, a walk through a rose garden, a cross-country road trip, a night sky of fireworks on the Fourth of July, or a customized environment to your liking. Scott Minneman and JD Beltran began Cinema Snowglobes at The Workshop Residence, and the resulting handmade versions debuted at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art. At Stochastic Labs they have taken the project a leap forward, with another spin of engineering and production tuning that has enabled a better experience with a larger, circular video display, integration of the invention’s functions, reduction of the production cost, and initial steps toward higher-volume production for wider distribution. The Cinema Snowglobe was awarded the international New Technology Art Award as one of the top art and technology projects worldwide, and also was featured at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Scott Minneman is an innovative technologist who invents, designs, engineers, fabricates, and exhibits novel physical interactive devices for public spaces. Blending art with technology, he creates innovative forms of immersive, interactive storytelling. After earning architecture and engineering degrees from MIT (MS and BS) and Stanford (Ph.D), Scott was on the research staff at the think-tank Xerox PARC for fifteen years, then cofounded Onomy Labs, a make-tank for interactives. He has been commissioned to create interactive projects and art pieces all over the world, including Mexico City, Singapore, Tijuana, Denver, St. Petersburg, Cleveland, Bishkek, San Francisco, Nashville, and Goleta. The Cinema Snowglobe, Scott’s most recent invention (with partner JD Beltran), imbues the traditional tourist tchotchke with cutting-edge video technology for a delightful handheld experience. He also is faculty in the Graduate Program in Design at the California College of the Arts.

JD Beltran is a conceptual artist, designer, filmmaker, writer, curator, and educator. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the M.H. de Young Museum, the Getty Institute, the Kitchen in New York City, the MIT Media Lab, and in the 2006, 2008, and 2012 ZeroOne San Jose New Media Biennials. Also an expert in public art, she has been commissioned for public art projects worldwide, and her work has been featured on NPR and reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and Wired. JD is the president of the San Francisco Arts Commission and is also faculty in the Film, New Genres, Art and Technology, Printmaking, and Critical Studies Programs of the San Francisco Art Institute. She is faculty in Design at the California College of the Arts, and lives and works in San Francisco.