In the exhibition “The Passage of Venus”, presented at the Musée Départemental Arles Antique, an animated avatar of the Venus of Arles speaks with visitors. Here is the story of an experience that places each person face to face with the artwork.
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A grandmother crosses the room, fetches her two granddaughters who had stayed slightly behind, one a teenager and the other a young adult, and brings them over to the installation. She is the one who insists that they try it. A few seconds later, the three of them are talking with the Venus of Arles, who answers them in the first person.
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The avatar was designed by Ask Mona for the exhibition “The Passage of Venus”, presented at the Musée Départemental Arles Antique.
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A Tailor-Made Creation

Ask Mona first created a faithful 2D model of the sculpture, then developed a real-time animation system based on that representation. The Venus was then given a voice, a personality and a knowledge base built from content provided by the museum.
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The whole experience was integrated into a scenographic setting designed as a boudoir: visitors sit down, speak out loud, and the Venus answers them in French, English or Spanish. They speak to her as they would speak to someone.
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“The intimate atmosphere of the boudoir reflected our desire to let visitors speak with the Venus, face to face and out loud. We wanted them to feel close to her, to understand her, to share something with her.”

Marie Vachin, Head of Mediation, Visitor Department, Musée Départemental Arles Antique

A Sculpture Speaking in the First Person

The exhibition was built around one clear intention: “to give the Venus of Arles her voice back”. The sculpture has a long and eventful history. Discovered in Arles in the seventeenth century, presented to Louis XIV, restored at court and later kept at the Louvre, it has travelled through the centuries while scholars, experts and poets have attributed successive identities to it.
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The conversational avatar gives form to that intention. For the first time, the Venus speaks as “I”, tells her own story and answers the questions visitors ask her.
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“Ask Mona made it possible to give the Venus of Arles her voice back.”

Marie Vachin, Head of Mediation, Visitor Department, Musée Départemental Arles Antique

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Four Minutes Face to Face per Visitor on Average

What stands out is the amount of time visitors spend with her. The installation has already generated thousands of conversations, with an average duration of nearly four minutes. That is a long time for an exchange in front of a single artwork, and it shows how attention begins to take hold and become fully lived.
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Mediation professionals know this well: active engagement supports memorisation. When visitors take part in a dialogue and receive an answer addressed directly to them, the experience leaves a trace. This encounter with the avatar creates a highlight that visitors talk about as they leave.

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The avatar also speaks in three languages. Over the same period, English and Spanish together accounted for more than one in eight conversations, making the experience particularly useful for international visitors, who are numerous in a city whose Roman heritage attracts people all year round.

The museum team has also observed another phenomenon: visitors address the Venus more directly than they would a mediator, with greater spontaneity. The installation also creates shared moments, often among families, such as the grandmother who came to fetch her granddaughters.
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When the Artwork Enters the Conversation

For centuries, artworks have remained silent. A conversational avatar opens up another possibility: allowing them to answer, in their own voice, those who come to see them. In Arles, the Venus did exactly that.
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For a cultural institution, this is what the immersive experience changes: the visit creates a direct exchange between the visitor and the artwork.
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“2026 is the year of AI avatars. We are going to see cultural institutions introduce graphic representations into their scenography, creating memorable experiences for visitors. Artificial intelligence will no longer be just a visit companion on a phone: it will become an integral part of the exhibition itself. The Musée Départemental Arles Antique understood this. Others are beginning to follow their example."

Valentin Schmite, CEO and co-founder, Ask Mona