Close encounters at de Sarthe Gallery, where you can always count on something new, surprising, and comfortingly human.
Beyond Sight, an exhibition created by artist David Moquay (@david_moquay) during a summer residency with de Sarthe, is an immersive, one-of-a-kind experience that expands the possibilities of human sight.
Engulfed in darkness and surrounded by starry light, your place in the universe is suddenly made visible.
Upon entering the gallery, you’re immediately transported into another world. Moquay uses imagery acquired from NASA, layering and animating it into timelapses of activity unfolding across our galaxy. At this scale, you can witness Saturn larger than you ever could through a telescope, observing it almost as though you were one of its moons, Titan or Phoebe.
Across the floor, a reflective material ripples and bends the light like the surface of water.
The three-hour visual experience also incorporates LiDAR scans Moquay collected in France of landmark spaces. Transformed into moving images, the scans appear ghostly and strangely weightless, resembling drone footage even though they were captured by hand at ground level.
LiDAR is essentially a visual echo.
It uses laser light to precisely map three-dimensional objects and environments. It’s also one of the technologies machines use to perceive physical space, which makes it particularly interesting at this moment in history to imagine what our world might look like through a nonhuman form of vision.
Moquay’s expertise with the technology, paired with his understanding of the elements and systems that make up our universe, makes the experience feel especially considered and well executed.
We’d also like to acknowledge @desarthe_usa for its continued commitment to new and experimental art that still connects back to undeniably human fascinations: our desire to see farther, understand more, and locate ourselves within something much larger.
Beyond Sight unfolds over three hours, but you don’t need to stay for the entire duration. In fact, its length encourages multiple visits, with each return offering a different visual experience from the last.