A spectacular immersive digital experience inspired by Jan Gossaert’s 16th-century masterpiece The Adoration of the Kings, ‘Sensing the Unseen’ presents one of the National Gallery’s most popular pictures as never before. Visitors are led into individual ‘pods’ to experience an interactive version of the painting. In the pods, visitors encounter a large screen featuring a digital image of the painting which has been ‘sonified’ using ambient sound and music.

Visitors zoom into details of the painting in an aural and visual experience that places them in the world of the painting and helps them discover and navigate previously unseen elements.

A full-scale high resolution 3D colour replica of Jan Gossaert’s masterpiece is accompanied by the voice of one of its depicted characters, King Balthasar, who speaks to visitors through a specially commissioned poem by the 2019 Young People’s Laureate for London, Theresa Lola.