I spoke with Reese Antoinette & MaryAnn Talavera about The ORIXA Project at Onassis ONX Summer Showcase 2023. See more context in the rough transcript below.
This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.
Music: Fatality
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling, and the future of special computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different projects in and around Tribeca Immersive, going back to 2023 and the Onassis Onyx Summer Showcase, I had a chance to check out a project called the Risha Project by Reese Antoinette and Marianne Talavera, So this is a multifaceted project. It had like a 360 video, there's an AR component, there's a live performance. So I'm going to read the description just to give it a little bit more flavor. So Arisha is a mixed reality installation exploring black narratives of the past, present, and future. The lens of virtual reality, 360 video, augmented reality, and volumetric capture technologies. And then there's a number of different subsections and other subprojects. And The one that I saw at the Summer Showcase in 2023 was four black people breathing peacefully for five minutes. And it's described as a 360 degree short film exploring a moment of peace and healing between a group of friends within the backdrop of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the COVID-19 pandemic. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Reese and Marianne happened on Saturday, June 10th, 2023. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:31.812] Reese Antoinette: Hi, I'm Reese Antoinette. I am the co-founder of the Orisha Project, one of the developers, along with Marianne, who will introduce herself in a bit. And I am an actor, a writer, a creator, and very passionate about culture and womanhood and bringing that into my work as an artist.
[00:01:51.280] MaryAnn Talavera: Hi, my name is Marianne Talavera. I am a creative technologist. I create XR work. I'm also very interested in virtual production. I am a filmmaker and an educator. I work at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and I am passionate about stories that uplift black and brown communities, specifically femmes of color.
[00:02:11.908] Kent Bye: Awesome. And maybe you could give a bit more context to each of your backgrounds and your journey into working with virtual reality and immersive media as a form of storytelling.
[00:02:19.994] Reese Antoinette: Sure. So I went to grad school at NYU for acting. And while I was there, we primarily focused on theater and film sometimes. And I always had this idea that there was more to that in acting and a different world that could expand storytelling in a different way using the acting foundation of text, but also with the body and new spaces. And we weren't doing that in school. And so I asked for a better way to get into that. And I met Marianne. And so she was also at NYU and we decided to collaborate on this project, the Arisha project. That's how I got into this project. But however, I've been very, very passionate about new ways of storytelling and immersive experiences and the way that acting combines with spaces and the way that we're thinking about narratives now and in the future. And so I think this project collaboratively is allowing me to look at that and to work with fantastic women who we're figuring out what the future of this could be. And it's been exciting.
[00:03:27.520] MaryAnn Talavera: Hi, and yeah, I had always thought that I was going to go to film school, but then was thinking about going beyond the screen and went to the ITP program at Tisch, where I started working on XR projects. I made a little XR app that was called Gentrified, criticizing gentrification by like littering Harlem with like these random gentrifying objects like Starbucks and you know, sushi and little scooters and things like that anyway. So yeah, so through ITP, I started using these different tools like Unity, Blender, Unreal Engine, and looking at how storytelling could evolve beyond kind of what I was used to, which was TV and cinema. And yeah, I had this idea for Arisha. There was a grant at Tisch that was all about fostering collaboration across departments. So I reached out. I thought, who has a skill set that's completely different from mine? So I reached out to grad acting, and I think At the same time, in parallel, as I was looking for a partner to work on this project, Reese was looking to get into XR, and it just was a really beautiful opportunity to come together. And from that, we've been able to build the Arisha project into what it is today, and I'm just very proud about it.
[00:04:44.935] Kent Bye: Awesome. So we're here at the Onyx Studios. They're exhibiting a number of different art pieces at their exhibition space here. I'm in town for Tribeca Immersive, seeing all the different pieces. So I always love to come to Onyx Studios to see what's emerging, what's coming next. And so I just had a chance to see a number of different iterations of your project. There is some video. There's an immersive 360 video. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to where you started with the Reshare project and what you're showing here today.
[00:05:13.200] MaryAnn Talavera: The first element that we started with was, so it was always going to be a mixed reality experience, celebrating the African diaspora, using different types of XR, representing the past, present, and future. And we actually started with the present, with a 360 film called Four Black People Breathing Peacefully for Five Minutes. Reese knew the writer, Michael Allen Harris. And that's what kicked everything off. And we shot the film during the height of the pandemic, in the middle of the police brutality protests. So it was a really challenging time to be making creative work. But we were grateful that we were able to connect with artists who were really passionate about the project. I don't know if there's anything else that you want to...
[00:05:56.929] Reese Antoinette: No, the director is Lin-Kyu Aung, who's also a director from NYU's program. She was in the film department. She's fantastic and also has a strong background in the content of social activism and community organizing and was formerly a hip hop artist and so adds a lot of great direction to the film and to the content, to the acting. And I think that's also reflected in the film. When you watch it, there was a real sense of having a voice and each character being individuals and having that text that Michael wrote be the form of activation for the time and the spirit of the energy of that. And so a lot of the set design, a lot of the chanting that you're hearing on the roof when you watch the film, all of that is intentional. And the breath is also very intentional. So the pauses and the dialogue about just sort of feeling like you're in on a secret of a personal experience, which we all were sort of having in silos during the pandemic, is something that we expanded on in a cultural context in that film.
[00:06:58.365] Kent Bye: So four black people breathing peacefully for five minutes. And so they're wearing masks, but it was actually shot during the pandemic. So there's a scene where they're in a living room, and then you have like a hologram of a deity character that appears, and then they all go up onto the roof. And there's this moment of real contemplation where you get to see each of their faces as they're looking over at the sunset and hearing the different protest chants. I thought that given the context of everything that was happening in the moment and just to see, I don't know if it was a look of grieving or is sort of a blend of peace and joy, but also rage. And I don't know how you sort of describe this mix that you're able to invoke in that moment. I thought it was quite powerful because you're, you're just sort of looking into their faces, but each of them were, I'm just curious what the direction you gave to them and what you were trying to achieve with that moment of serenity or also reflection and contemplation at the end of the piece.
[00:07:55.362] Reese Antoinette: Yeah, so I think Linky was very intentional about taking our time and one of the actors in the piece, making sure that we were connected to the actual reality of our own experiences as four black people, but then also how these characters were very different. And also in the set design, but also in the costume design, which was done by Queen Jean, who's a huge activist for trans liberation rights in New York City. she also made sure that each character represented the colors of the Orishas. And that was also very intentional. So that was a part of the creative process of creating the community of these friends, the authenticity of these friends, and then allowing the space and time to relate to that relationship. So we were very much in dialogue with our environment. And because we were shooting in the pandemic, it really wasn't a hard sort of, you know, reach. But nonetheless, it doesn't take away from the dynamic work that Lyn Q did with all four of the actors in the middle of a pandemic to make sure that we were going into traumatic places, but also doing it in a healthy way, which the project is touching upon with the breath and making sure that we're breathing collectively and that we're finding joy. That's why there's comedy. in the script. So there was a sense of like, how do we heal? That was very much present in the conversations we had before shooting.
[00:09:14.294] MaryAnn Talavera: And then also just to connect it to the larger project of the Orisha project, when we did the live performance, There was a session with Kathleen of Breathwork and in talking about this project as a response to a very traumatic time and unfortunately a situation that consistently kind of repeats itself, we have said that we want this project to be nourishing. not just for us as creators, but also to viewers. So yeah, you can see in that moment for the actors in the film that there is grief, but there is serenity, there is peace, there is connection. And the deity who represents Oshun really allows them to have that moment and just to breathe and be human and feel what they're feeling.
[00:10:03.916] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm wondering if you could each elaborate a bit on the Arishas and what they mean and how you're integrating them into these bodies of work that you're creating here with the Arisha project.
[00:10:13.553] Reese Antoinette: So the Orishas is originally from West Africa, the Yoruba tradition. What you're seeing in our project primarily right now is Yemeya, Oshun, and Oya. And they're very much connected to nature. So Yemeya is the ocean, Oshun is the rivers, Oya is lightning and storms. And so throughout the project, you'll see these women appear in multiple different ways. But it's a call to the African diaspora, a call to your culture, a call to your roots, your blood, a remembering of who you are throughout time and space. Although we are in many parts of the world now, there's a sense of connectivity, a non-linear journey that we're calling upon through the Orishas, through spirituality, through these lands that we feel connected to no matter where we are, through language and time and space. the sense of guidance from something beyond us and before us that we're making present and bring into the future.
[00:11:06.450] MaryAnn Talavera: Right. I think all that I would add to that is in addition to connection, there are themes of also motherhood. There are themes of lineage and ancestrality. And, you know, with all respect, we feel like we've tapped into something that is greater than ourselves and hope that comes across for the viewers. You do see the Orishas kind of pop up in different elements of the Fuller project. And yeah, so kind of like next for us is building out the future worlds, which will be augmented reality worlds led by Black women of the future and each having a connection to the Orishas that Reese mentioned, Yemaya, Oya,
[00:11:55.627] Kent Bye: You mentioned that there was a live performance, and I don't know if that was what was shown in the background with the 2D video, but maybe you could talk about the broader context of that live performance, because you're showing a 2D capture of it, but I'm wondering if you could walk through what the performance was and what you're showing here in video form.
[00:12:11.004] MaryAnn Talavera: Yeah, we did a live performance at Barnard College. It was a work in progress showing where we had elements, like the digital human elements, but then we also had live performers who, we had a dancer, we had like a movement piece with someone who was embodying Oshun, and then we had the breath work, and then also Reese had a monologue that I don't think that was shown there. Yeah, I don't know if you want to talk about that.
[00:12:36.709] Reese Antoinette: So the monologue is a digital human that's based in the future from Planet Aris. But the live performance aspect incorporated dance, a bit of experimental sort of use of the space. The Oshun character was very much interacting with the audience, slow movement, sort of taking in this idea of energy, sort of reverberating in time. And just the idea of what does it mean to interact with an audience? I feel like here at Onyx, we're having different kind of feedback. It's different trying to like perform in a live space and having people react in time. And so that was one of the things that we were getting out of that. But Oshun and Oya are represented in that performance. as well as we had the digital humans from the past and the future. We were also talking about the intersection between technology and humanity in that performance as well, which you'll see here today, which is basically how do we translate stories through bodies and also how do we translate stories through mediums.
[00:13:40.154] Kent Bye: You had mentioned that there was an augmented reality portion. Is that the next phase of the project then?
[00:13:45.307] MaryAnn Talavera: Yeah, we currently have a little AR demo here where you see the Orisho-Shun in this island waterfall environment. So this is built in Unity. And so we would take that prototype and basically have each of the main characters from each planet do the monologue, but then you would also be able to see their world in augmented reality. Yeah.
[00:14:11.028] Kent Bye: You mentioned that there is the past, present, and future. And so I'd love to hear some reflections on time and how you're exploring different dimensions of time throughout this piece as you're collapsing and bending all these different dimensions of time together in these pieces. But yeah, I'd love to hear any reflections of the past, present, and future.
[00:14:27.455] MaryAnn Talavera: I think we have talked extensively about how time where the way we're conceiving of time in this project is not like this linear A to B kind of way, but instead this more kind of cyclical connection that we have with our ancestors, with our present selves and with our future selves or, you know, descendants. So for us, using these different technologies, it's like we're able to not exactly time travel, but kind of create portals of connection between the past, the present and the future in order to not only heal ourselves, but maybe heal our ancestors and hopefully imagine a brighter future.
[00:15:07.774] Reese Antoinette: Even if you look at the title of four black people breathing peacefully for five minutes, like the piece is actually 11 minutes. So it's also a play on numbers and time. I think we're very conscious about time and numbers and the sense of the here and now, but also the past and the present all happening at the same time.
[00:15:26.434] Kent Bye: And so what's next for this project? Do you feel like it's still a work in progress and you're trying to bring it all together? I'm just trying to get a sense of because there are so many different components of live performance 360 video augmented reality. Like if you have a sense of the way that people will be able to see this potential in the future, how you imagine putting all these pieces together.
[00:15:45.017] MaryAnn Talavera: Yeah, so I think this experience here at Onyx and also our showing at Movement Lab has cemented that we would like a space that now is like representative of the home and maybe in this home there are different rooms where you experience the different parts of the project as well as communally having the live performance experience together. So I think building that out more technically, you know, we're both members of Onyx, so doing some production here with motion capture, doing some more world building. And then also we are actually going to reshoot for black people in the fall. So I think those are our next steps. Is there anything I missed?
[00:16:28.231] Reese Antoinette: No, I think that's right. I think also just expanding on what that immersive theatrical experience could be. And just like at Columbia, there are live elements to this performance. So as we are continuing to build out what is in a headset, what is the media, what is the live, it's a wonderful dialogue that we're having in the creative process and just really enjoying where we started from in the beginning till now and just how many things have changed since then, but also how much I personally have grown in the process and even my own connections to the Orishas has been expanding and sort of mind blowing and feel very personally guided by the spiritual journey that I think is also in collaboration with the project in some way. And so I feel very much honored to be a part of whatever is going to be next. And I think also the feedback that I've gotten today have been so rich. I think the people who have come here are just real gems in where we are right now in the process. And particularly because I think hearing about how people are feeling in the space is really helpful, especially if you're coming out of a headset, you're picking up on the set design. You know, these are all intentional actions that we took in order to get feedback about the difference between that and this. And are you receiving that? So it's keep driving on that road and seeing where it leads us.
[00:17:50.939] Kent Bye: Yeah, I know I was speaking to a developer invoking different Norse mythologies and there's a piece called Ragnarok with Julie and she was saying that there is a sense that when she was interacting with the project that there's almost like this invoking of the deities and the spirits of engaging with this more directly as almost in a more deliberate dialogue. Go back to like the Greek myths and the ways that this is like these living gods that are in more indirect relationships with the people. So I'd love to hear any anecdotes or stories or what it was like for you to be invoking these Orisha deities in the process of your project? And you alluded to a little bit, but I'd love to hear a little bit more elaboration on that dialog that you've been engaging with.
[00:18:30.598] Reese Antoinette: Yeah, I mean, I'm a very I love plays and text and theater. So for me, like words matter and story matters. And I think I'm watching and reading my own story as I'm creating in this process. And I found that the nature around me, which I love is also communicating back. I mean, on the night of our first work in progress, literally there was a storm that wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to happen that would have affected our turnout. It literally happened right after our event. And like those little things seem small, but they're really not. I mean, there's also like as much as we can create, There's also things out of our control. And I think that relationship is interesting. You know, the rain, the oceans, you know, you look at like even the fires that are happening recently. Like, I think the earth is also saying something. And that's where the deities are coming from, you know. And also like, so as much as I listen to myself and my own spiritual guide and voice, I also believe that they're in relationship to a larger universe. thing being that's also helping to say something or not, you know?
[00:19:41.715] MaryAnn Talavera: Yeah, I would say it kind of brings me back to a moment I was studying in Brazil and I went to a candomblé ceremony. And even though I'm not a practitioner of candomblé nor santeria, I felt in that moment, I don't know, called to something like something kind of awoke in me and just seeing in different ways, like the example that Reese just gave about the storm, either through the connections that we've made, the collaborators that have given of their time and of their talent to this project, just feeling so inspired and healed by this. And I feel like that is spiritual so yeah i just feel very grateful because i feel because we're seeing i feel like we see the orishas in this and i hope that we continue down this path and are able to make something that makes other people feel connected you know whether you identify as part of the african diaspora or not i think yes ultimately this piece is a celebration of the diaspora it is also a piece of resistance but It is a love letter to black communities across cultures and nations. But what was so funny at Barnard, I remember there were people who weren't of African descent who said, wow, I really connected with that. And I started thinking about my own background. I'm Korean and my own spirituality. So, yeah, I think there's just something there. And I hope that people walk away feeling nourished.
[00:21:10.623] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you each think is the ultimate potential of all these immersive technologies and immersive storytelling and what it might be able to enable?
[00:21:20.586] Reese Antoinette: I think it's going to open up more connection to humanity. At least that's my goal. I think that there's really important conversations happening, conscious conversations that are happening between the collaborations of different mediums. And I think in a world where we're looking at things so separately about humanity over here, technology over here, this is a world where we're blending and I think intentionally creating with that in mind and not ignoring where we've come. but also imagining where we could go. And I think as I've been in these rooms, I've been just completely blown away about the different approaches to this medium from a creative standpoint, but even from a documentary standpoint, just the ways that we can fully understand something in a more meaningful way, I think is very hopeful to what we're struggling with right now, I think across the board, whether in multiple avenues of our humanity right now. And so I'm very excited about the work that's happening and being in spaces like Onyx and also what's happening in all of these festivals across the world and just really, you know, new spaces, I think is very inspiring.
[00:22:32.975] MaryAnn Talavera: I am cautiously hopeful for the future of, I don't know, art, performance, extended reality. I think that there is so much opportunity for creative work to be done, for creative processes to be like re-envisioned i am a little worried i mean also at the same time i think that there's a lot of conversations that can be had about like ai and ethics and things like that but i think that ultimately if we're able to center like the human the humanity and the human connection above all i think we'll go down a great path and actually be able to use this technology to open doors for other people i think a big part of this project is not just us presenting but there's an educational component and We want people, we want to inspire future generations to take hold of these tools and be stakeholders so that they're able to create their own stories going forward.
[00:23:25.578] Kent Bye: Awesome. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:23:32.253] Reese Antoinette: Tune into the Orisha Project. We'll be working on that. I'll just say no. No, tune into the Orisha Project. But also, I'm very excited to collaborate with other creators that are hearing this, that are interested in what we're doing. It's very much been a strength of the project to be collaborative. And I think as we continue to expand and grow, please reach out. And we would love to talk more about what we're doing, potentially work with you. But also, if you just want to watch and be along, like, we would support that as well.
[00:24:03.152] MaryAnn Talavera: Yeah, and then jumping off of that, yeah, I'm excited for future collaborations, but then also lastly, I would say just thank you to the people who've collaborated so far, who continue collaborating with us because it's just been such a beautiful experience and I'm looking forward to the future.
[00:24:20.481] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, excited to see where this project goes in future as you start to tie all these things together. And yeah, I think there's a lot of different components, a lot of different modalities, and it's a rich story that you're trying to tell. And I feel like there's a lot of different ways of using the technology to tell little segments of that story. And as people watch all the different pieces, then they'll get a broader sense of this deeper story of that you're trying to tell about the Arisha. So thanks so much for taking the time to break it down a little bit and best of luck as you move forward. And thanks for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:24:48.717] MaryAnn Talavera: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:24:51.420] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to this episode of the voices of your podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast and please do spread the word, tell your friends and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a, this is part of podcast. And so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
