Sir Antony Gormley's 15-minute virtual reality experience will transport visitors to the Moon

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Robert Dex @RobDexES7 March 2019

Angel Of The North sculptor Sir Antony Gormley has created a virtual reality installation that transports visitors to the Moon.

The artist teamed up with American astrophysicist Priya Natarajan and used data gathered by Nasa to recreate the Moon’s surface digitally.

Visitors to Lunatick at 180 The Strand will wear VR headsets for the 15-minute immersive experience which sends them soaring upwards from the beaches of Christmas Island and through the asteroid belt.

Gormley said: “Our nearest neighbour is the Moon, and this project allows us to experience it as a found object in space, to explore its vast open spaces and swoop the ridges and valleys of its craters.”

He developed the idea after meeting Dr Natarajan, an expert in dark matter and black holes, at Cambridge University. He said: “Having had some experience of virtual reality, it was clear to me that the technology was better at evoking space than it was at describing objects and I began to consider the possibility of making the body into a spaceship, which could explore the cosmic realities at the heart of Priya’s research.”

The pair worked with Acute Art, who have previously provided cutting edge technology to artists including Anish Kapoor and Jeff Koons, on the project which Dr Natarajan said offered “a space ride like none other”.

She said: “What thrills me most about Lunatick is how the combination of data, imagination and the latest technology can succeed in powerfully conveying how we as a species occupy this paradoxical place in the universe — we are simultaneously significant and insignificant.”

Gormley said the project was partly inspired by his childhood reading of a series of science-fiction books The Space Trilogy by C S Lewis, who also wrote the Chronicles Of Narnia. He said: “In them a man named Elwin Ransom travels the universe in a coffin. I love the idea of extending the body’s capability and allowing it to travel at many times the speed of light.”

Lunatick is at The Store X, 180 The Strand, from April 5 to 25 and admission is £5

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