Tuan Mu, Rodolphe Macabéo
Oyat, 2025
VR experience for Meta Quest 3
Oyat is a XR interactive and immersive experience that weaves together ecology, natural disasters, ink painting, and the Taoist cosmological view. The work is inspired by the 2022 wildfire that broke out in the Dune of Pilat. The title Oyat in French refers to the European marram grass that grows on the dune. The plant plays a key role in stabilising the dunes, but intriguingly, once the dunes have become stable, the plant gradually disappears.
Using 3D scans of a withered piece of wood collected from the Dune of Pilat, the work invites viewers into the interior of the dead tree to explore the vitality of a forest. Inside, painted with ashes, the surface of the withered wood evokes a cave mural of Ni Zan’s shan shui landscapes. Traditionally, shan shui painting represents a dialogue between humans and nature. In the work, the viewer’s bodily movements become metaphors for brush and ink painting, listening to, and creating nature within a virtual space as a way to reflect on ecology and catastrophe. Through mixed reality, viewers are led into a space where the boundary between virtual and real dissolves, bringing them closer to the reality of nature itself. Towards the end of the experience, viewers encounter a poetic space composed of marram grass, maritime pines, and shifting dunes. The space evokes the rebirth of the Dune of Pilat scorched by wildfire, with its landscape rearranging based on the viewer’s bodily movements.
Roomscale, 7mins20secs
Creative Team
Director | Tuan Mu
Artists | Tuan Mu, Rodolphe Macabéo
XR Software Developers | Lin Hung, Huang Chien-Jung
Composer and Sound Creator | Rodolphe Macabéo
3D Scanning | Rodolphe Macabéo
Typographer | Lucas Macabéo
Special Thanks | Dana Kim
Supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation
IMAGES
VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tuan Mu (Taiwan, b. 1994) is an artist and independent curator based in Taipei. After graduating from Taipei National University of the Arts with a major in Ink Painting, he began seeking ways in which new media could reinterpret the unique worldview of traditional Asian culture, using a poetical approach to explore human perception and thinking in this age of technology. His artworks often develop from Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, East Asian animism and mythological tales. Combining media such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, animation, sound performances, ink painting and calligraphy, Tuan Mu’s artworks compose a transdisciplinary narrative structure, and engage the viewer in a dialogue. His artworks have been presented in numerous international exhibitions, including Durres Biennale, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Asia Digital Art Exhibition, CutOut Fest, Miami New Media Festival, Now & After International Video Art Festival, Venice Immersive Market Taiwan Pavilion, Festival ECRA, CineGlobe Film Festival, CYFEST Media Art Festival and International Digitalkunst Festival.
Rodolphe Macabéo is a Franco-Canadian composer, sound artist, and performer exploring the porous boundary between music and the living world. After four years as a sound artist at an immersive art studio, he stands at the forefront of musical innovation, blending generative systems, instrumental improvisation, spatial composition, and field recording to redefine the relationship between composed music and environmental sound. Through experimental listening devices — such as stethophones, ultrasonic sensors, and electromagnetic transducers — he captures the hidden vibrations of reality, revealing the bioacoustic dimension of our environments. His meticulous attention to sonic detail anchors a deeply melodic sensitivity, crystallized in his upcoming album De la nature des choses (December 2025), where natural textures meet poetic form. Macabéo’s practice often extends to collaborations and immersive installations. His sound and music pieces, developed within collective projects, have been presented internationally at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the UCCA Labs and the Boxes Art Museum in China between 2021 and 2024. As an independent sound artist, his works have been shown at the Palais de Chaillot and Le Houloc in France, at the RIXC Gallery in Riga, at CutOutFest in Mexico City and at Bogoshorts in Bogotá between 2024 and 2025, and at the Grand Palais of Paris in 2026.
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
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