Neil Armstrong became the first human to land on the moon on 20 July, 1969. This significant event in human history is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and tribute has been paid in many forms. A virtual reality installation co-created by artists Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang is currently being shown in Manchester International Festival.

Dubbed ‘To The Moon’, the work features a dreamlike VR experience taking the audience on a special lunar exploration, which was debuted last year, and now with an accompanying installation with film, images and music. Visitors are able to get closer to the lunar surface as they fly from earth to space in the 15-minute VR experience, with the imaginary dark new moon recreated with images and tropes from Greek mythology, literature, science, sci-fi, space movies and politics. The scenes include life forms that are becoming extinct, fly-through around dinosaur skeletons made of DNA symbols, the Moon imagined as a dystopic dumping ground for plastics and nuclear waste and many more topics that we shouldn’t ignore regarding our own planet.