#1324 Beginning of Tung-Yen Chou’s Gay Sauna Trilogy with “In the Mist”

Tung-Yen CHOU’s In the Mist is a 360 video that premiered at Venice during the pandemic in 2021. The synopsis of the piece is “In a dim-lighted room filled with mist, blurred figures of men are sipping the desire and loneliness from each other. You seem to have entered a forbidden zone and fallen into a state between dreaming and being awake, gazing at someone and also being gazed at by them. Theatre and new media director Chou Tung-Yen once again touches on the unspeakable life experience of the gay community culture, exploring a male sauna through poetic lenses to take a peek into something that’s hidden under the desire—the love without love.” I had a chance to speak with Yen remotely in 2021 about his piece that actually kicked off what ended up being a trilogy series followed by a mixed reality performance called Gazing, in the Mist, and then Traversing the Mist which premiered at IDFA DocLab 2023 and is featured in the next episode. In the Mist faced some censorship from distribution platforms of Viveport and Oculus as it featured male nudity and adult themes, which made it difficult to watch alongside the other pieces that were showing during the virtual exhibition of Venice VR Expanded in 2021. We talk about the challenges of distribution, but also the process and journey of creating what ended up being the first chapter of a longer journey and poetic trilogy exploring the gay sauna culture in Taiwan. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality