Space invader: The enormous French art installation that looks like a flying saucer

This French art installation may be the closest you’ll ever come to spotting a UFO. Hovering just metres above the ground, you would almost expect a staircase to lower from a hidden hatch. Cue the blinding lights.

Despite its flying saucer appearance, this gigantic spheroid mirror is actually a proposed art installation by renowned kinetic artist Vincent Leroy. Seen in motion, The Pebble is mesmerising.

Viewed from beneath, it rotates while reflecting the ground to occasionally merge with the horizon. No doubt, a dizzying experience.

These images of The Pebble show what it would look like inside France’s famous exhibition hall, the Grand Palais. Under the historic art nouveau glass roof of the Grand Palais, the installation would pose a striking comparison between old and new, says Fiona Hillary, RMIT lecturer in master of arts – art in public space.

“That kind of comparison between something that’s so historically significant and something that’s so contemporary draws our mind into a conversation between the present and the past and the future,” she says.

“This work is located in the present, but it reminds us of the past and pushes us into thinking of the future.”

Though it may look like it weighs a tonne and is controlled by complex technology, The Pebble relies on old-fashioned ingenuity. The sculpture is filled with air and held aloft by a system of steel cables. Similar to Leroy’s Boreal Halo installation that toured Europe, the inflatable structure would be suspended by cleverly disguised cables to give the impression of defying gravity.

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The ceaseless movement and sheer size of this eye-boggling exhibit is designed to elicit an emotional response – no matter where it is placed.

“This kind of scale, wherever it was located, would have a different reading,” Hillary says.

“I think wherever a work of this monumental scale and movement was placed, it would impact the built environment and the human interaction with the environment.”

Leroy’s use of mirrored surfaces draws obvious parallels to Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park. The sculpture is commonly referred to as “The Bean” owing to its shape. On its curved surfaces, the polished stainless steel sculpture creates funhouse-like reflections for viewers.

Like Leroy, Kapoor uses mirrors to distort perceptions of space and explore the idea of the void. Kapoor, a London-based artist, plays with light and reflection in his art and this can also be seen in his earlier installation, Sky Mirror. The sculpture, which is also made with stainless steel, was displayed outside Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012 and 2013, and is now outside a theatre in Nottingham, England.

Works by artists such as Leroy and Kapoor are increasingly popping up in major cities and regional towns across Australia. Leon Paroissien, chairman of the City of Sydney’s Public Art Advisory Panel, says there is also a growing global appetite for corporate-commissioned art work.

“There have been some spectacular works by artists in the public arts space and there are amazing works all over the world now,” he says.

“Not only is there a trend towards permanent public art right around the world in major cities, but also there are many sponsored works that are temporary and that’s extraordinary.