An interspecies journey of care and transformation
Empathy Creatures is an immersive installation centred on a sensitive virtual bird whose appearance, voice and behaviour change in response to stress, attention and care.
Driven by behavioural AI, the bird has moods, needs, memory and a degree of agency. It does not simply follow a predetermined sequence. Its inner state shapes the way it looks, moves, sounds, acts and responds to its surroundings. It may become curious or fearful, approach or retreat, play, rest, search for food or fall into repetitive, anxious patterns. Under intense stress, it becomes agitated and burning red. As trust develops, its colour gradually shifts towards blue, its song becomes more melodic and its activities more playful and inventive.
The work operates through two connected experiences: an intimate encounter in VR and a persistent world displayed continuously in the exhibition space.
In VR, one participant enters the bird's world and meets it at close range. They communicate through their hands, breath, voice, gentle movement and play. The bird senses the quality of their approach and responds in real time. Trust is not won by completing a task. It grows through attention, patience and play.
At the same time, a continuous life simulation follows the bird's autonomous existence on a large public screen. Visitors can observe its routines, emotional condition and changing garden. The effects of successive VR encounters remain visible: plants recover, waste disappears, the environment changes and the bird carries traces of the care it has received.
Conceived as a kind of collective Tamagotchi, the work connects a private encounter to an ongoing public world. What one participant does alone with the bird becomes part of a larger, cumulative story witnessed by others.
Empathy Creatures treats stress not as an individual weakness, but as a condition produced by the systems we inhabit. Rather than asking people to adapt to systems that exhaust them, the work imagines care as a crack in the machine: a way of interrupting the logic of pressure, speed and productivity.
Empathy Creatures was initiated during Mélodie Mousset's Artist-in-Lab residency at the Mobiliar Lab for Analytics at ETH Zurich, between 2024 and 2025.
The project grew out of the Lab's research into chronic workplace stress and its experiments with machine learning, behavioral data, biofeedback and immersive technologies. Among other findings, the researchers developed models capable of identifying stress through ordinary desk-based actions such as typing, clicking and moving a mouse. These small, mechanical gestures can reveal emotional strain that may remain invisible even to the person experiencing it. Their research indicated that nearly one third of Swiss office employees are affected by chronic stress.
Taking this research as a point of departure, Mousset imagined a virtual creature acting as a sensitive barometer of its environment: a sentient bird that absorbs collective tension and makes it visible through its appearance, voice and behavior. Designed to be irresistibly vulnerable and expressive, the creature encourages people to care for it and, through that relationship, to turn some of that attention back towards themselves.
The first prototype was presented in March 2025 as part of Ctrl+Alt+Relax at La Mobilière's headquarters in Bern, before its international premiere in competition at Venice Immersive 2025.
Empathy Creatures is presented as two simultaneous spaces: a public life simulation and a one-to-one VR encounter. The installation allows spectators and participants to experience the same evolving work from different positions.
A large screen remains visible throughout opening hours, presenting the bird's autonomous daily life in real time. Day and night cycles connect the simulation to the rhythm of the exhibition. The display functions as a public window onto the garden, where visitors can gather, follow changes over time and discuss the creature's condition.
Because the simulation runs continuously, the work can also be encountered without entering VR. It creates an ongoing public presence within the exhibition and gives visitors a reason to return and observe how the world changes.
One participant at a time enters a semi-enclosed scenographic space and wears a standalone Meta Quest 3 headset. The experience uses no controllers. Hand tracking, breath, voice and physical movement form the interface.
The VR session lasts approximately 15-20 minutes and is directly connected to the public simulation. From outside the headset, the participant remains visible to other visitors. Their gestures become part of the installation, while the large screen provides another view onto the world they are affecting.
The full presentation separates the two components while keeping them visually connected.
The life simulation is shown on a large, highly visible screen, creating the impression of a window or an oversized aquarium opening onto the bird's ongoing existence.
Nearby, the VR encounter takes place within an intimate but publicly visible circular curtain. A red-to-sky-blue environment reflects the bird's emotional spectrum and marks a transition between the exhibition space and the virtual world.
From outside, the participant's gestures become a silent choreography of care. Breathing, reaching, feeding and caressing are transformed into a public performance, while the screen reveals the world to which those gestures are addressed.
The installation can be presented in its complete scenographic form or adapted to a lighter touring configuration without changing the relationship between its two components.
Empathy Creatures has been presented in several configurations, from its first prototype at La Mobilière in Bern to its world premiere at Venice Immersive and subsequent presentations in Shanghai.
Empathy Creatures is a living, evolving installation. Available for licensing - contact melo@patchxr.com
Mélodie Mousset
Mélodie Mousset (b. 1981, Abu Dhabi) is a French artist and XR pioneer based in Switzerland. Her practice combines performance, installation and emerging technologies to create playful, psychologically charged and multisensory experiences exploring embodiment, porous identity and collective transformation.
Her works have been presented internationally at MOCA Los Angeles, ZKM Karlsruhe, M+ Hong Kong, HEK Basel and the Zabludowicz Collection in London. She is also co-founder and CEO of PatchXR, the studio behind PatchWorld, an immersive platform for collaborative creation in virtual worlds.
Mélodie Mousset · PatchXR AG
Chriesbaumstrasse 6
8604 Volketswil, Canton Zürich, Switzerland
melo@patchxr.com
+41 78 768 66 24