muzeox

Beast Invaders

This work explores one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring stories: the Apocalypse. A recurring theme across civilizations, it was famously depicted in the 14th-century Tapestry of the Apocalypse, now displayed at the Château of Angers. I wanted to reimagine this heritage as a “living tapestry,” where visitors are invited to interact with it.

This concept inspired the creation of a retro-style video game that revisits a classic of the arcade era: Space Invaders. Here, the player embodies Saint Michael, locked in an endless battle against the Beast of the Apocalypse. The game’s visuals draw directly from the medieval tapestry, infused with touches of pixel art to bring certain elements to life.

A distinctive twist lies in its mechanics: there is no final victory. The Beast keeps returning, growing stronger with each appearance. In this seemingly fatalistic cycle, players may resurrect once—if they correctly answer a cultural question about the tapestry. This is where the installation takes on its educational dimension.

While defeat is inevitable, players still gain something valuable. Each attempt enriches their knowledge of the tapestry and of apocalyptic traditions, while a leaderboard encourages replay, sharpening both gaming skills and cultural understanding. In this sense, one could argue that players truly win: through play, they acquire skills and knowledge. This echoes the story of the Apocalypse itself: though often cast in a negative light in popular culture, it ultimately delivers a hopeful ending where good triumphs over evil.

Integration & Vision

Beast Invaders can be fully customized to reflect the masterpieces in your own collection. Visual elements, game mechanics, and challenges can be adapted to the style, themes, or narratives of different works of art, turning each game session into a unique exploration of your institution’s holdings.

The educational component is equally flexible: cultural questions can be personalized to highlight historical context, artistic techniques, or intriguing anecdotes related to the artwork. This approach transforms gameplay into a rich learning experience, seamlessly blending entertainment with education.

One can imagine a dedicated arcade space within your institution, where each arcade game explores a different masterpiece. Each game could feature distinct mechanics, visual styles, and interactive challenges, creating a varied and immersive environment that encourages visitors to engage repeatedly with art and history in a playful and memorable way.

The Eye of Revelation

This artwork is inspired by the Apocalypse Tapestry. Its most striking feature is a mechanical — or animatronic — eye placed at the top of the frame. The eye scans its surroundings, animated with an almost lifelike presence. Its black and red iris suggests an unsettling vigilance — could it be the Eye of the Beast?

The artwork itself is a montage composed of elements taken from various scenes of the original Tapestry, offering a unique, comprehensive view of the entire work within a single digital canvas. The composition takes direct inspiration from Bosch and Bruegel, evident in the densely populated scenes and meticulous details.

Visitors can also take part in a simple interactive game: they are invited to search for various elements—such as characters, objects, or animals—hidden within the composition. The interaction is multiplayer, using a control panel equipped with two arcade joysticks that allow participants to explore the artwork and reveal its concealed elements. When something is found, detailed information appears. Meanwhile, the animatronic eye reacts to the players’ discoveries, enhancing the immersion and the living presence of the installation.

The “Eye of Revelation” is a deliberate play on words, as Apocalypse literally means “Revelation” in Greek. This interactive experience allows visitors to uncover or reveal details of the Tapestry, all under the watchful gaze of the eye.

Integration & Vision

The composition of The Eye of Revelation is highly adaptable, allowing it to become a unique collage of significant figures, portraits, objects, or motifs drawn from your institution’s collections. This flexibility enables the creation of a dense, Bruegel‑inspired visual environment where multiple narratives and stories coexist, inviting visitors to explore connections and discover hidden details.

Interactive layers can be tailored to tell inner stories or highlight specific themes. Multiple collections of items can be defined, offering a variety of challenges for visitors. These could include hidden characters, anachronistic objects, or thematic elements, each encouraging careful observation and engagement.

Through these adaptations, the installation not only showcases your collections in a playful and immersive way, but also encourages visitors to actively participate in uncovering narratives, deepening their understanding of the artworks, historical contexts, and the imaginative possibilities of the composition.

LEGO Live

In this artwork, visitors become the protagonists. This interactive installation allows them to see themselves reflected in real time as a living LEGO mosaic. The bricks, varying in size and dynamic, occasionally grow or shrink, bringing the reflection and surrounding space to life.

When no participant is interacting, the digital display loops videos and images transformed into LEGO mosaics, creating a dynamic and colorful visual spectacle.

Visitors are also invited to take part in a gestural interactive quiz: by raising their left or right hand, they choose their answer. Each question comes with additional information, and multiple themes are offered.

The artwork relies on computational imaging techniques to provide real-time rendering and uses computer vision and AI to track visitors’ movements..

Integration & Vision

The system can be customized to display specific videos or images depending on the context or exhibition venue. Each sequence can be selected to highlight a particular theme, collection, or visual universe chosen by the museum or organizer.

Beyond the visual experience, the interactive quiz component can be tailored to explore a wide range of topics relevant to your institution. Subjects may include the history of your collections or intriguing facts about certain artworks. This adaptability ensures that visitors not only interact with their own reflection but also engage with meaningful content that enriches their understanding and overall experience.

The Living Canvas

What if figures from historical artworks could speak to us? This project brings that very idea to life, transforming portraits of historical figures, scenes from classical paintings, and even mythological characters into interactive storytellers through the power of Generative AI. Each figure becomes a window into the past, offering a voice to the silent images we usually observe from afar.

Behind each portrait, an endless stream of words flows continuously across the background, like fragments of an ongoing story. Some words may hint at the character’s life, thoughts, or surroundings, while others appear unrelated—inviting curiosity and reflection.

Visitors are invited to interact with this dynamic environment through simple gestures. By selecting any word from the flow, the character responds, narrating a fact, anecdote, or insight connected to it. Through these interactions, visitors can explore the figure’s personality, the painting’s history, and the broader historical context, creating a rich, personal dialogue between past and present.

Integration & Vision

The Living Canvas can be tailored to create a dynamic gallery of “living portraits,” each representing a distinct character from different historical periods. These characters can be drawn from existing portraits in your collection, significant local historical figures, or even mythological and literary personalities relevant to your institution’s narrative.

All background terms and word streams can be carefully curated to align with the character, their era, or your institution’s themes. This allows the installation to convey historical context, cultural insights, or educational content in a playful and engaging way.

The interactive design is flexible: words can trigger historical facts, anecdotes, or amusing stories, offering visitors a multifaceted exploration of the past. By providing perspectives “from the character’s time,” the installation encourages curiosity, sparks imagination, and fosters a deeper connection to your collection or exhibition themes.