Chou Tung-Yen's VR Trilogy on Queer Desire Screens at Fierce Festival Birmingham

Key facts

• Chou Tung-Yen was born in Taipei in 1981 and studied theatre directing at Taipei National University of the Arts and scenography at Central Saint Martins in London.
• In the Mist (2020) and Traversing the Mist (2023) screen at the Fierce Festival in Birmingham, United Kingdom, from 14 to 18 October.
• In the Mist is a 360° VR video set in a Turkish bath featuring nude men who gradually have sex.
• The Venice International Film Festival selected In the Mist for competition but required VR works to be available online and on official platforms like Meta's, leading to a special screening instead.
• Gazing, In the Mist (2022) was developed as a mixed-reality collective experience for 20 people after Tang Fu-Kuen, then curator of the Taipei Arts Festival, proposed it.
• Traversing the Mist is a fully VR, interactive, multi-person experience where the audience enters a giant body identical to the participants' shared avatar, and the avatars age and evaporate.
• Chou avoided video-game language in Traversing the Mist, rejecting goal-oriented challenges and escape-room structures in favor of VR as a portal into a dreamlike space.
• In the Mist ends with the Turkish bath walls receding to reveal a stage, leaving only dust, smoke, and mist.