Exploring empathy: Reflections from the Empathoscope

On June 2nd, we hosted an ESCalator session at Inholland, inviting our ESCreatives, professors, and researchers to explore the Empathoscope: an intriguing boundary object developed through a collaboration between Jeroen Peeters (Future of Now) and Guilherme de Baère with the Societal Impact Design professorship. Senior researcher Laura Niño reflects on this ESCalator.

The Empathoscope is a compact yet powerful artifact (70 × 70 × 20 cm), constructed from partial mirrors, a programmed lighting sequence, and a wooden structure. Placed on a table in a dimly lit environment, it is designed to spark curiosity and invite a different kind of encounter. One that engages the senses, disrupts the glazing patterns of interaction, and opens space to see the other and oneself in a different light, literally and figuratively.

As a senior researcher within the professorship, it was a pleasure to witness our ESCrowd engage with the installation. Having experienced the Empathoscope multiple times during its development phase with Jeroen, Gui, Fabian, and Wina, I had already begun to see parallels with transition processes. Like many societal transformation projects, the experience is characterized by uncertainty, curiosity, and the continuous need to reassess what is happening in the moment.

What struck me again during this session is how the Empathoscope operates in a completely different “language” than the one we typically use when discussing systemic change. Where transition processes are often framed in rational, structured, and outcome-oriented ways, the Empathoscope does something else entirely. Within just a few minutes, it shifts people into a different mode of being, one where perception, sensation, and awareness take precedence over analysis. This, however, needs further reflection and work. On its own, without further reflection, the Empathsocope becomes mostly an intriguing moment.

A playful disruption of everyday routines

The Empathoscope provides a playful interaction that interrupts our often busy, efficiency-driven routines. It invites participants to slow down, to look, and to be puzzled—together.

During the session, 14 attendees took part, engaging with one another while seated across the artifact. They later reflected on their experiences, sharing insights about how they perceived themselves, the other person, and the interaction as a whole.

What emerged is that the Empathoscope creates a shared experiential space where individuals can meet without needing prior alignment in language, identity, or perspective. Instead of relying on conversation, it offers a common perceptual interface, mirrors and light, through which meaning is co-constructed.

Participants described how the experience “makes a lot happen in between people, but also in yourself,” highlighting its dual effect on both relational and self-awareness.

One of the most striking qualities of the Empathoscope is how it shifts interaction away from verbal exchange toward embodied co-presence. In this space, multiple interpretations can coexist. There is no single “correct” way to see or experience the other; instead, participants continuously negotiate between sameness and difference.

Importantly, the Empathoscope does not directly generate full empathy. Rather, it creates the conditions in which empathy might emerge. It sparks curiosity, a willingness to look at the other, to linger, and to explore. This initial curiosity is a critical but often overlooked step in multi-stakeholder systems, where empathy cannot be assumed but must be cultivated.

The Empathoscope acts as a boundary object that creates an in-between space:

• not fully self
• not fully other
• not fully private
• not fully social

This in-between quality is precisely what makes it powerful. In contexts where trust and openness are fragile, such as transition processes or multi-stakeholder collaborations, such spaces are essential.

Curiosity instead of closure

What stayed with me most strongly is the playfulness of the experience. The Empathoscope does not aim to resolve differences or produce clear outcomes. Instead, it keeps the experience open, inviting curiosity, imagination, and surprise.

It encourages participants to look through the other’s eyes, not fully, not completely, but just enough to destabilize their own perspective.

In doing so, it reminds us that before empathy comes something more fundamental: a willingness to be curious about the other.

Link to Systemic Co-Design

Systemic Co-Design intentionally employs boundary objects to open up new forms of awareness and negotiation between perspectives. In this session, the Empathoscope offered a compelling example of such an object—one that moves beyond purely rational cognition and instead engages participants through sensory, embodied interaction. By doing so, it invites alternative ways of knowing, grounded in perception, presence, and subtle relational dynamics.

While its playful design effectively sparks curiosity and heightens both self- and other-awareness, the experience also reveals its limits. On its own, it initiates a shift in perception, but does not yet sustain it. For this emerging awareness to meaningfully contribute to transition processes—or even lead to moments of catharsis—it requires deliberate extension through reflection, dialogue, and complementary activities. In that sense, the Empathoscope operates as a valuable starting point: a catalyst that opens the door, but still needs a broader design context to carry its potential into lasting transformation.