// Artistic VR Game directed by Sine Özbilge
• Berlinale Talents 2025 DE
• SXSW Sydney 2025 AU
• SIGGRAPH 2025 Immersive Pavilion 2025 CA
• Tricky Woman Lumine Award Best VR 2025 AUT
• GamesLab Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2025 UK
• Next Level Festival 2025 DE
• Anima 2025 BE
• PlayTime 2025 BE
• Leuven International Short Film Festival 2025 BE
• Breedbeeld Kortfilmfestival 2025 BE
• Unwrap 2025 BE
Cathex is a transdisciplinary VR experience that unfolds as a virtual poem, guiding the participant through an intimate journey of emotional transformation and existential inquiry. Framed by a search for a long buried memory, one that reveals a profound connection between the self and the cosmos, the work invites embodied engagement within a subconscious digital terrain. Drawing from the philosophical legacy of Mary Whiton Calkins and her theory of the Universe as the Absolute Self, the experience interweaves poetic narration, gestural interaction, and spatial sound to navigate states of joy, sorrow, and anger.
Emotion regulatory movements become both the medium and message, with each physical gesture mapped onto visual pathways that mirror internal emotional topographies. As participants trace these paths, they enact a process of release and catharsis, culminating in a moment of existential recognition.
Situated at the intersection of conceptual art, game design, and academic research, Cathex proposes a hybrid language for new media practice, one that dissolves traditional boundaries between player and viewer, artwork and experience.
Director: Sine Özbilge
Assistant Director: Imge Özbilge
Producer: Sarah D’hanens
& Team Cathex ->
