Empathy creatures
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Inside a lush garden tucked within a busy corporate building, a delicate virtual bird flutters. Flaming red, teetering on the edge of burnout, it paces in circles, picks up cigarette butts, and bangs its head against concrete walls… Poor creature — so sensitive, so exposed. It lives, breathes, and feels without skin, mirroring the emotional exhaustion around it. Empathy Creatures is an emotionally intelligent immersive installation — somewhere between speculative fiction and poetic wildlife simulation.
Unfolding in two parts, participants encounter an AI-powered being that senses them, talk to them, and gently invites them to slow down,
listen and engage in mindful rituals of care. Like a collective Tamagotchi, the work explores emotional co-regulation, collective
healing, and our shared responsibility in an interconnected world.
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2025 |
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12 minutes |
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All ages |
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Bird language |
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Switzerland |
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Interactive VR + AI Life Simulation |
trailer
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ARTIST
Mélodie Mousset
Mélodie
Mousset was born in 1981 in Abu Dhabi. She is a French award-winning artist and XR pioneer based in Switzerland. Her artistic research
merges performance, art installation, and emerging technologies to craft playful, psychologically charged, multisensory experiences
exploring porous identity, embodiment, and collective transformation. Her works have been widely exhibited in museums and festivals,
including MOCA (Los Angeles), ZKM (Karlsruhe), M+ (Hong Kong), HEK (Basel) and the Zabludowicz Collection (London). Mousset is also the
co-founder and CEO of PatchXR, the creative tech company behind PatchWorld — a top-rated immersive platform reshaping collaborative
creation in Virtual Worlds.
awards
- Venice Film Festival competition
- GIFF competition
Credits
With Mélodie Mousset ■ AI developers and bird animation by Virtual Being
With Wendelin Reich, Raphaël Ostrov , Christopher Potu
■ Tech artists & designers : Victor Beaupuy Tech art lead, Valentina Hawes Character design, Zelong
Lu 3d environnement ■ Sound design & music by PatchXR with Simon Larcher and Gad Baruch
Hinkis ■ Scientific advisor: Mobiliar lab for analytic ■ Produced by The Mobilière Cooperative’s Art Collection with the support of Pôle de création numérique (PolNum)