Léon Denise, Samuel Lepoil and Dorian Minuit have collaborated together on numerous VR projects (Les Murs Parlent, L’empire de l’ordinaire, Vegetal Tempo) and are now together on their first collaborative museum project since June 2020. Léon Denise uses the tools of video games to explore and experiment with new ways of perceiving realities. Dorian Minuit is a light and digital artist, he uses light and the relief of shapes to intertwine physical and digital structures. Samuel Lepoil is creative director at the Tamanoir studio. He is dedicated to writing and designing immersive and interactive experiences at the frontier of digital and performing arts. His work, inspired by both video games and theater, focuses on shared experiences and the re-engagement of the body in the digital age.
Heterotopia tells the story of that special moment of introspection after a breakup where the color left by the last moments fades away to give way to the more authentic feeling of what a relationship has brought us.
As the journey unfolds, the participant witnesses the defining moments of a couple’s life that they have experienced in the spaces of the city. In this way, he revisits the memories of this couple as one revisits a city in which one lived in the distant past.
The interactions, using all the possibilities opened by the kinect, try to express in different ways the state of mind of the two lovers at different moments of their lives. This involves, in particular, involving the bodies of the participants who have gone before us and are safeguarded by the kinect, as well as those present around us.
So, we give first elements of answer to the question : what is the real benefit of VR ? By allowing the spectator to see himself through the prism of virtual reality, we offer him another perspective of his body, his place in space and in the world. We multiply it, we change its dimensions, we take it out of its own body. In the end, we allow the spectator to reconnect with himself and to regain awareness of his body that we think we have acquired.
As Albert Camus said, “We inhabit our bodies long before we think we do.” Heterotopia allows us to inhabit it again.
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