"Conquest of the Night" is the title of the first joint exhibition of the Historical Museum Lucerne and the Nature Museum. In the "BATVISION" section of the exhibition, visitors can take on the perspective of a bat using virtual reality.

Over the last 200 years, people's relationship to the night has changed fundamentally. In the past, the dark time of the day was mostly spent resting, but today many people also work at night. The first joint exhibition of the Lucerne Historical Museum and the Museum of Nature, entitled "Conquering the Night", is dedicated to various aspects of the nocturnal darkness and the brightly lit night.

Darkness sharpens sensory perception

The Nature Museum takes visitors on a journey through the night, away from the illuminated city and into the countryside. In the darkness of the room, visitors sharpen their senses: here a quiet sound, there a shadow or a smell.

At the Historical Museum, night becomes day, because night is more than just the dark time of day, according to the museums. Darkness fascinates people, but also unsettles them and makes them shudder. People invented numerous strategies to arm themselves against night-time fears. Many of these objects can be exhibited for the first time in the Historical Museum with "Inside the Light".

Batvision at the Nature Museum

With virtual reality glasses, visitors to the Nature Museum can experience BATVISION perceive the world the way bats do. BATVISION transports you into the perceptual world of the bat and allows you to experience the echolocation of the animals. The VR glasses visualise the bat's auditory image in a way that we can understand. Surrounded by complete darkness, the virtual world of experience only becomes visible through your own scream. BATVISION uses immersive technologies to make knowledge not only comprehensible but also tangible. In this way, the VR experience also sensitises people to disappearing habitats and an endangered species.

At the interface between technology, design and science, BATVISION was created in collaboration between the Industrial Design programme and the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts. The producers were also in close contact with bat researchers from the Swiss Bat Protection Foundation.

The VR experience is available on Saturdays in the afternoon (2 - 5 pm).

There are also telescopic images of the night sky to marvel at in the Nature Museum.

The exhibition will run until 16 April 2023.

Source: Batvision / Nau / Yotube