We Humanize Digital.
We don't digitize humans. We humanize digital.
The Context
The Metaverse Failed. But Not the One We Had in Mind.
When Cybel'Art was founded, we called ourselves "The Metaverse Agency." We believed the metaverse would be what we were building: real artists captured in holographic fidelity, real concerts experienced in immersive reality, real human presence transmitted across time and space. We believed the word would come to mean what we meant by it.
It didn't. The industry chose the opposite direction. Meta spent tens of billions building synthetic worlds populated by faceless avatars — and nobody came. Microsoft buried HoloLens. Apple shelved Vision Pro. The press now speaks of a "fiasco." The metaverse they built was dehumanized by design. Ours never was.
That is why we changed our tagline. Not because we lost faith in immersive technology — but because the word "metaverse" had been corrupted beyond recognition. We became "We Humanize Digital" to make our position unmistakable: technology must serve the human, not erase it.
Henri Dès recording his icologram® — Photo: Cybel'Art
"I didn't want to deal with the dead. Let's leave the dead alone. I will take care of the living. I will create 'icologram®'.
— Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu
Our Vision
What We Always Meant by 'Metaverse'
Where the industry built synthetic worlds for anonymous avatars, we capture real humans — their talent, their presence, their soul — and bring them into your world through augmented reality and immersive media. This was always our definition. The industry simply chose a different one.
Synthetic Avatars
Faceless characters in empty digital rooms. A dehumanized vision of interaction where nobody recognizes anybody.
Living Legends
Philippe Entremont, Henri Des, John Howe — real artists, captured in their lifetime, preserved with holographic fidelity through icologram®.
Real Performances
Virtual Hall® places you inside a real symphonic concert — the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Beethoven's Ninth at Lausanne Cathedral — not a simulation.
Photo: Cybel'Art & Friends
icologram®
The First Holographic Testament of a Living Artist
In late autumn of the year the metaverse hype began, Maestro Philippe Entremont — one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries — sat at his Steinway and recorded his icologram®. Not an avatar. Not a deepfake. His real hands, his real sound, his real presence, captured in holographic fidelity for future generations.
Le Figaro called it a world first. It was. While Silicon Valley was spending billions to make humans disappear behind cartoon faces, a small Swiss ArtTech company was doing the exact opposite: preserving the irreplaceable.
Read Le Figaro articleVirtual Hall®
A Real Orchestra. Not a Simulation.
The metaverse promised virtual concerts with avatar musicians in fabricated halls. Virtual Hall® delivers the opposite: the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, filmed in immersive reality, performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Lausanne Cathedral for its historic anniversary. Real musicians. Real acoustics. Real emotion.
This is what immersive technology should be: a window into reality, not an escape from it. Virtual Hall® belongs to the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande — conceived and developed by Cybel'Art.
Discover Virtual Hall®
Photo: Cybel'Art & Friends
The Fundamental Difference
Two Visions of Technology
| The Metaverse | Cybel'Art / icologram® | |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | Anonymous avatars | Real artists, living legends |
| Content | Synthetic 3D worlds | Captured reality — holography, immersive video |
| Purpose | Replace reality | Augment and preserve reality |
| Emotion | Simulated interactions | Authentic human presence |
| Legacy | Disposable digital spaces | Holographic testaments for future generations |
| Outcome | Abandoned after colossal losses | Adopted by the OSR, presented at Artgeneve, Verbier Festival |
In the Press
What the Press Said — Before the Metaverse Collapsed
Philippe Entremont, first living artist to record his hologram
A world premiere: the hologram of a virtuoso recorded during his lifetime
The hologram as musical archive
Philippe Entremont, first living classical artist with his hologram
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande: from Victoria Hall to Virtual Hall
The living hologram of Philippe Entremont
The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande — owner of Virtual Hall®
The metaverse wanted to replace the world. We chose to reveal it. To capture what is irreplaceable in a human being — the gesture of a pianist, the breath of an orchestra, the gaze of an artist — and to transmit it, intact, to those who will come after us.
We Humanize Digital.
Cybel'Art — ArtTech — Switzerland
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