As part of a residency at the Basically Good Media Lab (BGML) at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU), French digital artists Antoine Boucherikha & Anne Hélou worked with students, staff, and faculty on their latest immersive audio project “EndoPlaneto”.
EndoPlaneto is an immersive sound journey following Harriet, a paleobiologist exploring distant exoplanets after the loss of her partner, Shu. This early prototype installation blends field recordings from British Columbia and France with fictional species and biomes, revealing a poetic, ecological universe where sound becomes living matter and listening an act of exploration.
The goals of their month-long residency were to anchor the project in a real territory by enriching EndoPlaneto’s fiction through direct recordings of living ecosystems, to test a creative methodology that combines field recording, sound design, and interactive implementation, to foster dialogue between artistic creation, scientific research, and mediation within an academic and cultural ecosystem open to hybrid practices, and to present an early immersive prototype to diverse audiences, including students, XR professionals, and the general public.
They visited multiple locations in and around Vancouver, BC, with their sound recording equipment to explore natural sites & capture soundscapes.
The second phase of their residency involved processing their captured soundscapes, designing the immersive sound experience, & starting work on the first prototype for “EndoPlaneto.” in Unity using Wwise.
After their initial recordings & prototyping, workshops were held in the Integrated Motion Studio at Emily Carr and the Center for Digital Media (CDM), where Antoine & Anne took students & faculty through their creative process. They also showcased some of the field recordings they had done and had live demos of the recording equipment & the in-progress immersive experience.
As part of the residency, a public exhibition of the prototype was also held at V-Unframed, hosted by the Alliance Française de Vancouver.
EndoPlaneto will continue its development in France, and soon in Taiwan and Japan, with renewed support from Pictanovo.
About the Creators:
Antoine Boucherikha:
Antoine Boucherikha is a French composer and sound designer exploring the relationship between sound, ecology, and interactivity. Mixing electroacoustics, field recording, and XR, his works blend sensory immersion, inclusion, and ecological awareness.
Anne Hélou:
Anne Hélou is a French graphic designer. Combining craft, image, and digital experimentation, her collaborative practice explores design as a living process of exchange and shared meaning.
Antoine & Anne’s XR residency is supported by The Basically Good Media Lab, Emily Carr University of Art & Design, Center for Digital Media, Alliance Française, and the Consulate General of France in Vancouver.