Tulpamancer

Tulpamancer is a machine-learning Virtual Reality installation that shapes a dreamlike, immersive encounter with the memories and possible futures of each visitor. Sitting at a computer terminal that had been left forgotten in a warehouse since 1989, participants first encounter the Tulpa through a series of questions about their own lives. They are then invited to meet in a world prepared uniquely for them. Participants put on a VR headset and are led on a journey through a series of uniquely generated virtual scenes that evoke and question the memories of their past and their potential fates. Ultimately, every interaction produces a unique work that is deleted at the conclusion of its viewing, leaving it to resonate only in the minds of each participant.

Tulpamancer explores what it means to share your life with a machine. The Tulpa, an idea rooted in Tibetan Buddhism but popularized by the theosophist Annie Besant, refers to the physical manifestation of thought through spiritual practice and intense concentration. A transformation in society now looms with the emergence of AI, a technology that derives its power by analyzing enormous volumes of online text and images—the digital traces of our collective unconscious. The Tulpa was a way of making sense of and providing alternative frames for modernity and how we may encounter ourselves, offering participants an occasion to imagine new histories and futures through AI

LANGUAGES : English, French