#313: Pushing Cultural Taboos Around Intimacy & Polyamory with ‘Viens!’

Michel-ReilhacMichel Reilhac is a French filmmaker who wanted to explore intimacy and polyamory within an immersive 360 video called Viens! (Come!). His Sundance New Frontier piece featured 3 women and four men exploring sensual touch and sexual intimacy with each other. Michel wanted to explore representations of the naked body and the tantric philosophy of using sexual energies for spiritual transformation.

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It’s a very provocative 12-minute piece that explores the spectrum between voyeurism and shared intimacy, questions whether something sacred could be transmitted digitally, and pushes the boundaries of presence by experimenting with eye contact. I had a chance to talk with Michel about his intentions with the piece, and how he sees VR can be used to challenge cultural taboos around sharing sexual connections with more than one partner.

Viens! is unfortunately not available to view online anywhere, but I’d expect to see more first-person perspectives similar to this that have the intention to simulate a direct experience of witnessing alternative sexuality in practice.

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Rough Transcript

[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast.

[00:00:11.939] Michel Reilhac: My name is Michel Reyak. I'm French. I live in Berlin in Paris and I'm a VR director. The piece that I have here is called Viens and it's my third piece working on the fourth one that I'll be shooting in Berlin next three months.

[00:00:26.177] Kent Bye: Great, so it's a very provocative piece and so I'm going to let you kind of describe it. What happens in this piece?

[00:00:32.760] Michel Reilhac: You see seven people, three guys and four girls, entirely naked, appear in a bright white room and there are no dialogues, no text, it's only binaural music over the images. And basically during the length of the piece, the 12 minutes that it lasts, They're going to engage in pre-sexual and sensual exchanges that progressively we're invited to witness. There's a very strong dimension of feeling that I am there as the viewer because they establish eye contact with me, the viewer, all the time. and progressively I understand that what they're doing is actually channeling their sexual energy so as to transform it into a spiritual transformation journey. And it's very much inspired by the Tantra way of considering sex. It's a way for me to express my belief that beyond the traditional ways of considering what sex is for or what sex is about, in either a love or lust kind of energy. There's a way to channel the state in which sex puts you to transform yourself in a very deep and spiritual way.

[00:01:56.382] Kent Bye: Yeah, that's the impression I had. It felt like the people that were there were very authentic. They were enjoying each other. They didn't feel like they were actors. They felt like, or maybe if they were, they felt like they had a certain amount of comfortableness with each other that wasn't contrived. It was very slow and sensual, and when I think about this whole buzz about porn and VR, it feels like this take of showing a more authentic and connected experience of sexuality, part of the intent is to see what the medium of VR is really good at. There's some cuts, but it's not fast-paced, it's slow, meditative, and you just have lots of things to look at, look all around. To me, I just thought it was very interesting and stimulating and provocative in a surprising way.

[00:02:39.341] Michel Reilhac: Well, you speak about it very well and we're on the same wavelength. I mean, you got what I wanted to say through the film and you talk about porn. Yes, there's a lot of talk about the sexual stuff with VR and I guess one of the reasons why people who do porn are excited about VR and Porn lovers are excited about VR is because of the empathy and the sense of presence and the sense of being there Which makes it a very strong experience. I'm not interested in porn I'm not interested in making porn, but I am interested in the representation of the naked body and I am interested in the representation of intimacy and I think one of the incredible potentials of that VR has for me as an artist is the possibility to explore intimacy in a different way. And sometimes it just takes a close-up or the camera being very, very close to someone within kissing distance of someone to create that sense of empathy and intimacy. In Viens, this piece, I've tried to go a step further and see how it feels to be close to someone naked.

[00:03:47.060] Kent Bye: How would you define intimacy then? Because I feel what you did and I feel like that's true, but how would you break it down? What is it that you were able to do that actually created a sense of intimacy?

[00:03:57.105] Michel Reilhac: It's not only the closeness and the 3D dimension or the realistic dimension that VR brings. It's also the authenticity of the intention on the part of the performers. You were talking about these performers. They're not professionals. They had never been in front of a camera. They're friends of mine, one of them is a lover of mine and we connected in this vision of nudity and sex as something that can bring us closer. So I know that intimacy is very often associated. to a couple relationship, a man and a woman together or two men together or two women together. And I think there's a level of experience that can be with more than just one person. I'm interested in exploring this and seeing what happens when you break the boundaries and you try and push them further in terms of exploring your own need for intimacy.

[00:04:53.315] Kent Bye: So I should also say that this was probably the closest that I've ever been of like feeling like I was at an orgy. And by that I mean a lot of consensual adults who are just open to sensual touch and just sort of progressively getting more and more intimate in their actions. And so it was kind of a surreal experience of just kind of feeling like a voyeur of an orgy.

[00:05:14.650] Michel Reilhac: Yes, I don't know if it was a pleasant experience or an unpleasant experience, but the word orgy carries a lot of preconceived notions with it, right? The idea of sharing intimacy with more than one person, sexual intimacy with more than one person, is not really acceptable by our standards. Offering the opportunity to explore that virtually, to explore what it can feel like to be naked with other people and open to engage in sexual exchange with more than one person, is something that goes against our principles, our values. But if you allow yourself to look at the situation and take a step back and see what it means in terms of pure energy, And by energy I mean not lust, but the transformational dimension of the sexual energy that it has in a man or in a woman, regardless of your sexual preferences. There's something almost magical, transcendental about the way sex makes you feel and behave. And allowing yourself to explore this dimension in a shared situation with more than one person is quite provocative. But if you consider it removed from any love kind of dimension, it is very, very powerful. It does something very powerful to you. but it takes a lot of understanding, love and sharing and respect to reach that situation where you can actually explore this with more than one person. So, yes, if you want to call that an orgy, you may, but to me it's not. It's more an exploration of something which is still very taboo and almost sacred.

[00:07:04.343] Kent Bye: Yeah, and if we look back in history, we see during the 60s there was this whole sexual revolution of free love, and I see this time period as a similar archetypal patterning of this revolutionary energy, the sexual revolution that happened, the seeds that were planted in the 60s are starting to sprout. during this time so I think there's kind of a rise of polyamory and more acceptance of alternative relationship structures and not just having this monogamous mindset but also what does it mean to have multiple lovers and I think in some ways this piece is a bit of a reflection of this sexual revolution that's happening during this time.

[00:07:40.236] Michel Reilhac: Yeah, totally. And if I speak from a personal point of view, I was a straight man engaged with a woman, the mother of my three children. I then became gay and I'm now really into exploring this polyamorous dimension in my own personal life. And it's taught me so much, the exploration of the different facets of sexuality that I'm at this point now in my life where I just want to reflect and share on the beauty of really fully respectful and yet open-minded behavior towards your own sexual fantasies and world. I really believe, and I'm not preaching this and I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm just sharing my view in relationship with the film, I really believe that the whole foundation, all the principles, all the criterias, all the values that are founding the couple relationship as an exclusive format, as an exclusive type of commitment that you have towards one another, where you have to fulfill all of the other's needs, all of the other's aspirations, is a very, very high goal for a man or for a woman to reach. It's almost impossible. So I think the fact that, like you're saying, looking at what the seeds planted in the 60s are blossoming into right now with these values of exploring commitment, respect, love and sexual attraction under a different light, a more open one that does not destroy any of the beautiful values of love, but explores them in different ways. I think that's a very exciting time for this because there is a sort of an open-mindedness about this that I think makes us able to do that, to explore.

[00:09:28.700] Kent Bye: Yeah, to me it's like there's been a number of movements like with the sex positivity movement, you know, having consent and I imagine in a situation like this, people may have a discussion about what was going to happen and what was okay, what was not okay. We're not seeing that discussion beforehand, we're just kind of thrown into this scene. And so I think that's part of what VR could do, I think, is to give a direct experience of what alternative sexualities are possible, what it kind of feels like from a voyeuristic point of view, not a participation but just sort of watching it and being there with some people who are operating under these rules and different structures that are counter to the normal cultural norms and like you said kind of going against the taboo. So I think that virtual reality has potentially a big part to be able to share your life experience for sharing these moments of what it actually feels like or looks like rather than someone's like imagined expectations of what this might look like or feel like.

[00:10:20.842] Michel Reilhac: Absolutely, and when you're using the term voyeuristic, I really am interested in questioning and challenging this notion of voyeurism, which is basically at the root of cinema. I mean, the pleasure that we have in a cinema, looking at a face from very, very close and looking at people kissing or having sex, this is something which has been happening in cinema forever. There is a voyeuristic dimension to the pleasure that we have of watching film, isn't there? So virtual reality allows us to push it a step further by feeling and having the experience of being there. In Viens, in this particular piece, the notion of voyeurism, I try to question it by seeing what happens if I ask the performers to constantly or as often as possible look at me, the spectator, the viewer. see what does it do to the viewer's experience if that connection is established from the performer's point of view. Does that make me more uncomfortable or does that make me feel more like I'm a part of this? So the voyeur level can vary from one viewer to another. but it's definitely a challenge in that particular piece. How do I make you feel if I'm having sex with someone and I'm looking at you while I'm doing that? Does that invite you closer to me or does that push you away? What does it do? And what I have found in the reactions of people who are watching Viens is that I get the two. Some people feel incredibly close and welcome, others feel rejected in a way. So it's really interesting because, like in cinema, we each carry our own layers of intimate story for what it does to you.

[00:12:03.918] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?

[00:12:10.542] Michel Reilhac: I did an experience here, it's a Swiss installation called Real Virtuality Immersive Explorers, which has been for me a look at the future of virtual reality, where I had arms, I had hands, I had a body in virtual reality that reproduced exactly my movement and physical life. And to this point, it's the most convincing experience I've had. So I think we're in the introductory phase of virtual reality right now, but in a couple years when we will be able to have devices that reproduce our physical movements directly into the virtual space, it's going to be crazy because it's going to be very, very, very involving and it will allow us to live vicariously experiences that we would never have the opportunity or allow ourselves to experience in real life. So I think there's a very bright future. And for me, as an independent artist, I don't belong to a studio, I don't work for a big company. I'm myself and I'm in Europe. I want to explore all this and appropriate the medium to see what I can do as a creative independent artist and go into that dimension now. Okay, great.

[00:13:20.876] Kent Bye: Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thank you for listening. If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash voicesofvr.

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