Impulse: Playing With Reality is a 40-minute interactive mixed reality documentary exploring how we make sense of the world around us. It is told through the stories of four people coming to terms with the decisions that have shaped their lives.
Focusing on the extreme end of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Impulse combines gameplay with first-hand accounts from people whose intense emotions and impulses place them at the edge of control.
Leanne turns her world into a game to escape boredom. Omar’s chaotic mind focuses on high-risk plans. Errol creates a larger-than-life persona to gain respect. Tara is on the brink of giving up.
These stories unfold within the viewer’s own environment through mixed reality. As you try to follow a train of thought, your surroundings begin to react. Objects trigger chain reactions. Shadows open into other spaces. Language breaks apart and reforms.
By focusing on the inner experience of ADHD, including perspectives often overlooked, Impulse explores both the intensity of acting without thinking and the possibility of recognising and reshaping those patterns.
Process
Impulse grew out of extensive research with neuroscientists, psychologists and people with lived experience of ADHD. Over 100 hours of interviews were gathered with the aim to move beyond explanation and understand how ADHD is experienced day to day.
Early in development, the team ran a series of collaborative experiments to explore how different aspects of ADHD could be expressed through interaction, including boredom, overwhelm and attention. They tested how mixed reality could be pushed beyond expected uses, often trying ideas that had not been done before. Some of these early experiments carried through into the final experience, helping to shape it as a system of mechanics rather than a linear story. It became “a game you can’t win” in one of the scenes, reflecting the constant negotiation between focus, distraction and impulse.
Mixed reality is central to this approach. As Barry (Creative Director of Impulse) describes, it begins with your own space. A room that feels familiar, even mundane, starts to shift. Layers build. Attention fragments. What was stable becomes unpredictable. At the same time, that space holds new memories and associations. The experience is not about leaving reality, but seeing it differently.
An Impact Study on Impulse, commissioned by Agog, will be released soon in 2026.
Available in English, Mandarin and Spanish.
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For more information on upcoming screenings and events
Visit the Impulse website
Check out May’s comment piece written for The Independent
May Abdalla & Barry Gene Murphy
Floréal & France Télévisions
Featuring Omar, Errol, Leanne and Tara as themselves
Anagram
Floréal & France Télévisions
Tilda Swinton
Meta VR for Good, France Télévisions, CNC, Agog, City of Paris, and Unity Charitable Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation.