Bubble is an interactive story that projects us into a Montreal +2°C where humans must survive hostile environmental conditions.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is increasing environmental alerts and urging the world’s population to act. Climate model simulations project an increase in average temperatures of about 2°C by 2050 if no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to their predictions, we will face severe weather events and intense air pollution on a daily basis.

Bubble takes us to Montreal in 2050, in a world where no action has been taken to curb climate change. The solution humans have found to survive the hostile environmental conditions: put their heads in a bubble. At a time when our actions have an impact on the future of humanity, each person is now responsible for their own fate.

Jeunes Pousses is an internship offered jointly by the NFB’s French Digital Studio and UQAM. For the third consecutive year, eight students were selected to create an interactive work from scratch, this time on the theme of urban adaptation to climate change. This creative internship featured UQAM students from different programs: communications (journalism, interactive media, etc.), graphic design and environmental sciences.

The 2018 cohort created Clit Me, a mobile game that openly explores female sexual satisfaction by focusing on the only organ designed exclusively for pleasure: the clitoris. The 2017 cohort created Deroutes, an app that takes Montreal Metro riders on a sonic journey through the city, featuring new Montrealers discussing their first experiences on the Metro.

You enter Bubble by putting on headphones or earbuds—truly entering your own little bubble. From the ambient sound and first-person point of view you can tell that you are a newborn. A protective bubble is placed over your head. In the first interactive sequence, your avatar is now a child, and you’re asked to clean the exterior of your bubble by moving your finger across the screen of your phone. The next two sequences, representing adulthood and old age, are intercut with lyrical commentary and contemplative animation depicting disaster scenarios playing out in Montreal. In each sequence, you need to complete various actions to take care of your bubble and advance to the next stage—and, most importantly, to survive. The experience ends with an animated video in which the now badly damaged bubble is removed from your avatar and given to another newborn.