More tickets released for Lunatick, by Antony Gormley and Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan

Due to popular demand, more tickets have been released for Antony Gormley and Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan’s first VR collaboration, Lunatick at The Store X, 180 The Strand.

Gormley, whose lifelong focus has been to investigate the body-in-space, first met the acclaimed astrophysicist and Yale professor, Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan at Trinity College Cambridge after he was invited by by Martin Rees, the then Master and Astronomer Royal, to give a talk about his work. Captivated by her work on black holes, dark matter and dark energy, Gormley immediately thought of Priya when asked by Daniel Birnbaum and Gerhard de Geer (Acute Art) to create a virtual reality experiment. 

‘This collaboration is an opportunity to experience the mind/body relationship in a new way and consider our own body’s relationship to other bodies in space,’ says Gormley on Lunatick; an immersive experience where viewers leave from a simulated island on Earth and arrive on a ‘real’ moon which has been mapped using NASA data.

Within the title, Lunatick, is a warning and an understanding that our future is dependent on the continued life of the biosphere. ‘Seeing Earthrise from the Moon as Buzz Aldrin did back in 1968, while not being quite the same experience, should still be a reminder of our dependency on this unique blue planet,’ he explains.

When Gormley approached Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan about the project, she was enthusiastic to help, ‘I knew that the perfect data-set for our project was the publicly available exquisite survey from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,’ she reveals.

‘VR permits us to share more broadly the magic and majesty of our universe in a more intimate experiential way’, Priya continues. ‘This project Lunatick with Antony Gormley and Acute Art provides an exciting opportunity for a unique voyage of exploration for everyone – a space ride like none other.’