New art installation takes viewers into caverns below Montreal

A new underground art installation in Montreal's St-Leonard borough takes viewers beneath the Island of Montreal.

It's been inaccessible to the public until now.

A new Montreal art installation, Cavernautes, is immersing visitors in a recently discovered aquatic section of the St-Leonard cavern.

The creative project is a collaboration between teams from the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) and the Université du Québec à Montréal.

"The whole motivation for this project is to be able to design something that could give the general audience that doesn't have access to that place a view of what's going on over there," said David St-Onge, a mechanical engineering professor at ETS Montreal. 

A flying device — a sort of hybrid between a drone and an airship — explores hard-to-reach places and captures the cavern's sounds and lights.

An immersive listening station, equipped with three large screens, shows visitors live and recorded video, as well as audio data captured underground.

The result is a sensory spectacle.

"A couple of our students were talking about it as a really meditative experience," said St-Onge.

Visitors will be able to enjoy this experience at the Pie-XII Park Pavilion until Aug. 16.