Mélodie Mousset has been making art in virtual reality for nearly a decade – long enough to have shaped how a generation first sculpts in mid-air.

As co-founder and CEO of PatchXR, she is building a platform where anyone can compose immersive worlds the way musicians compose songs. Her VR sandbox, Hanahana, has hosted some four million user-made sculptures and picked up a Gold Halo along the way.

A contemporary artist with an MFA from CalArts and shows at MOCA Los Angeles, the Royal College of Art, and Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, she also teaches at ECAL in Lausanne. She is the rare artist who builds her own tools, and just as happy to talk about either.