"It was one viral image too many. The one that made us all sick.”

Teraverstasis is a nostalgic exploration of the ruins of a lost metaverse, a cyberspace decimated by a strange virus. It is a journey through the digital space and the intimate memories of an AI; in places inhabited both by sweet souvenirs and by the disturbing remains of their missing inhabitants.

The project is a hybrid creation : it is both a 40-minute video game and a 12-minute short movie, that are complementary.
The video game lets the player discover the universe by themself, in a contemplative exploration of several levels; collect mysterious poems, that drive the journey; and listen to a dialogue between the main character and their inner voices.
The short movie offers a complementary viewpoint, as it recalls the history of this Metaverse in a poetic monologue, and is meant to be a tribute to this lost place.

The artwork itself was created using various artificial intelligence algorithms, to (co)edit the textures, the texts, and the main character’s inner voices. The the universe was carefully designed with many references to cyberspace and metaverse history.

At a time when billions are spent to develop the “Metaverse”, it tells a story of its future collapse. Through the use of fictional dialogues and enigmatic poems, Teraverstasis aims at making us empathize with those non-human beings. It also questions our legacy, and explores how the machine’s irrationality strangely resembles ours.