ScanLAB Projects, a London-based art studio, has curated a profile of Arizona’s deserts.
The team is led by artists Matt Shaw and William Trossell, who founded the collective in 2010.
Using LiDAR data, photography, and 3D scans, their efforts resulted in a series of five exhibits along the traditional path in the garden.
Massive displays have been built in front of the backdrop of Papago park, providing a new view of life in the Sonoran Desert. The limited time event is showcasing the small, gradual changes around us in a stunning format.
LiDAR scanning is a relatively recent development that uses pulsed lasers in order to create 3D maps of environments. In coordination with photography, animation, and music, a full picture is able to be generated, resulting in an up-close perspective of the ecosystem. This technology is used in conjunction with the natural landscape of the Botanical Gardens in order to enhance a visitor’s understanding of the area surrounding them.
Visitor Raymond Leleniewski told Northeast Valley News, “I live in New York, but I used to live in Phoenix. These videos made me feel more connected with the desert than when I lived there.”
“Present Echoes” is an immersive art installation and the first exhibit on the path, and displays the same cactus patch that it sits above.
For more than a year, over time, LiDAR scans and photographs were taken, resulting in a time-lapsed piece that allows viewers to appreciate the slow life of a desert staple, with 25 days passing every second you watch.
At the end of the pathway, within the RAF Exhibit Gallery, lies what could be considered the center point of the exhibition.
The namesake, Desert Pulse, is the sole portion that is experienced indoors, where ScanLAB has transformed a traditional gallery viewing into an otherworldly experience.
The gallery is entirely dark aside from the light of the displays, which hold a twenty-four-minute audio-visual piece where a viewer can witness the beauty of desert plants as they bloom and morph over time.
In particular, the Echinocereus species, better known as a hedgehog cactus, takes front stage, with its blooming flowers visualized with animation and scans and using orchestrated music to enhance the experience.
Utilizing technology, the art piece allows viewers to see biology in a way that has never before been possible.
The experience will be available at the Desert Botanical Gardens through May 10th.
Admission is free on the second Tuesday of every month.
