Desert Botanical Garden multi-sensory art exhibit: Desert Pulse

Desert Botanical Garden is hosting a new exhibit titled Desert Pulse—a multi-sensory art exhibition by London-based artists ScanLAB Projects. The Desert Pulse exhibit features five monumental video installations composed of thousands of high-resolution images. This transformative experience explores the pulse of the desert through photography, motion, and sound to awaken a deeper appreciation of the desert.

Desert Pulse premiered on Oct. 11, 2025, and will last through May 10, 2026. The exhibit captures a year of transformation across Phoenix, the Garden, and the Sonoran Desert using cutting-edge 3D scanning technology. ScanLAB documents the subtle shifts of cactus blooms, sediment flows, and seasonal change, inviting visitors to see the desert through a new lens.

Laura Best, Senior Director of Exhibits, Desert Botanical Garden, joined “Arizona Horizon” to talk more about the exhibit and what it has to offer for visitors of Desert Botanical Garden.

What sets this new exhibit apart from other exhibits that have come to the Garden is that DBG commissioned this one themselves. Additionally, it was created over the span of three years. One of those years was dedicated to 3D LiDAR of different points around the Sonoran Desert.

LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging. The technology was introduced in the 1960s and was originally used to measure large areas of terrain. However, LiDAR can also be used for a phone’s camera focus and performance, and for most self-driving cars. It works by putting out millions points of light, being able to map out an area.

In the art world, artists are using LiDAR as a new photography medium. For this exhibit, the artists were able to use this technology to capture changes in the Sonoran Desert over the course of a year.

“To do that every day, over 365 days, we’re able to show change and transformation in the desert in a way that no one’s ever observed it before,” Best said.