Mélanie Courtinat

Mélanie Courtinat (b. 1993) is a Paris-based artist and art director. Using video game development software, her practice extends from interactive experiences to immersive videos. By drawing on the tools and languages of the video game medium, she subverts its mechanisms and employs them as an artistic language.

Treating gameplay as both material and method, she creates works that unsettle the conventions of video games by reconfiguring their rules and structures. Through the manipulation of familiar elements such as tutorials, quests, boss fights, and save points, her work examines the systems of belief, commitment, and power that shape interactive experiences. These projects often adopt narrative or ritual forms, placing the player in situations governed by constrained choices and occasionally deliberately misleading mechanics.

Alongside her artistic practice, Mélanie Courtinat works as an art director for luxury, fashion, and high jewellery brands, as well as with creators from other fields, including cinema and theater. She also teaches video game history and digital humanities.