One cannot simply understand the full state another is in by walking a mile in their shoes— but one can, perhaps, step closer by putting on a virtual reality headset.
EMPEROR, the VR narrative experience published by France Télévisions, Astrea, invites participants into the fragmented world of a father affected by aphasia — the loss of the ability to speak and partial paralysis — caused by a severe stroke. Even though the whole experience is black and white, the narrative remains vivid in creating an immersive experience. The artistic, hand-drawn design allows you to fill in the blank spaces and create your own view of the state you are transported into. From the moment the headset was on, I found myself not just watching his story, but moving through it and experiencing for myself, sensing the quiet disorientation that comes with a life forever altered. In anthropology, we often discuss embodied experience: the idea that understanding culture and emotion occurs through the body, not just the mind. EMPEROR accomplishes exactly that. It doesn’t just tell the story of illness and loss— it lets you feel. Additionally, fieldwork in anthropology emphasizes “participant observation”: the act of learning by doing, feeling, and being present within another’s world. During the time I participated in EMPEROR, I was conducting a kind of digital fieldwork — immersed in the emotional landscape of someone’s lived experience.
Sitting Down, Stepping In
Before the headset was even on, the experience began with something deceptively simple: sitting down. Yet that moment marked a threshold, what anthropologist Victor Turner would call a “liminal space”: a term for the transitional phase when going through rituals or rites of passage, in essence meaning that you have left an old identity and are about to take on a new one, the “betwixt and between”.
Once the headset was on, I found myself in the father’s position. Tossed into a state of ambiguity and disorientation, which is entirely intended by this narrative. Even though the majority of the experience is sitting down, it is highly interactive. Multiple times, I was prompted to pick up or move an object— a sugar cube into a cup of tea, a flash card designed to help regain memory, a bottle that was half fish flapping its tail while holding onto the bottle’s neck. Additionally, in trying to help her father with motor skills, the daughter prompted me to write the date, where I had to use my finger to draw in the letters. However, when I thought I had correctly written the R in December, it changed to a P or a B before my eyes. That moment brought out confusion and second-guessing, having to do it over multiple times, I started to feel a touch of annoyance. However, it highlights how involved I got in the experience. All these interactive elements helped tie together the state and story of the father, and further helped to understand what it is like to be affected by aphasia.
Sound and Symbol of Silence
EMPEROR communicates in lesser part through dialogue and more so through symbol. The fading light, the soft echoes of words and sounds, and the disjointed movements that mirror the disorientation of aphasia. Language — the very tool that connects humans across culture — is absent on the father’s behalf, forcing participants to navigate meaning through gesture, rhythm, and silence. The only words are those of the daughter. Trying to help her father with his exercise, like the aforementioned motor skills of writing, or memory retrieval with the flash cards. But mainly, she was trying to reconnect with her father, and connect the story he is unable to tell now. The other auditory elements— creaking of wood floors, clock ticking, phone ringing, tape recorder playing— added to the immersivity of the experience, further enhancing the idea that I was in the position of the father.
When The World Comes Back to Color
As I moved deeper into the experience, I found myself emotionally entwined. All these elements of EMPEROR— the weight of silence, the texture of surroundings, the disorientation of actions, the heartfelt attempts of a daughter helping her father— combine to offer such a rich and thick sense of detail. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote about methods of “thick description” in human experience: an in-depth observation of behavior tied to cultural context, history, and symbolic meaning to enhance its significance and relevance further. EMPEROR, with all its components, provides a deeper understanding of human experience and beautifully integrates the method of “thick description” into a virtual narrative. And in many ways, EMPEROR mirrors the cultural rituals surrounding illness and loss. Across societies, when words fail, people turn to other forms of expression: touch, ritual, art, and movement. EMPEROR becomes a digital ritual, one that translates human vulnerability into shared experience. By walking through the father’s memories, you perform a kind of virtual empathy, one that transcends speech entirely.
The virtual journey of EMPEROR creates a very real sense of empathy, the kind that lingers long after the technology powers down—being taken through the experience of another person, whether a stranger, a neighbor, or someone who reminds you of family — offers more than just awareness. It cultivates connection. Through VR, empathy becomes not an abstract concept but an embodied act. You see, hear, and feel from another perspective. EMPEROR reminds us that technology, when used with intention, can become a form of cultural storytelling — a bridge between lives and experiences. Anthropologists often study how rituals, art, and performance reveal what it means to be human. This VR experience does the same, transforming pixels into presence and data into emotion. In the end, I left with a deeper appreciation for the fragility of communication and the resilience of love and life. And perhaps that’s the quiet power of EMPEROR: it doesn’t just show or tell us of another world — it lets us feel the humanity within it.