Intimacy in Virtual Realms

Zoom Burnout.

I think that by now, we’ve heard this phrasing extensively used. Many of us have felt it ourselves.

Having existed largely online since March at a minimum, many of us feel exhausted by the work and social encounters that take the format of small squares on computer screens.

Why is it so hard?

Possibly because Zoom selects which mic’s audio to project, limiting our cross-talk capabilities. I wrote about that back in June. Perhaps it’s because in order to see those we’re speaking to, we look at our screens rather than our cameras, rendering eye contact relatively impossible. Or maybe it’s the distancing effect of all of it; maybe it’s the inactivity.

You know what I think?

Zoom is a Panopticon.

Teaching, performing, larping, walking my dogs, merely existing with others in physical space… typically, I can tell when I’m being watched. Heads and eyes turn my direction if attention is on me. I can see when I’m being stared at; I can sense when I’m being judged.

But in Zoom, it’s difficult to tell whether the entities behind the tiled arrangement of faces on my computer screen are monitoring me. Are they reading emails? Scrolling Twitter? Paying bills? Or staring at each imperfection of my skin, my messy curls, judging me for trying to multitask?

I find myself staring at that second square; the box in which my own face can be seen. I’m sure many of you do, too.

Why?

I have a theory that it’s not simply vanity; it’s self-curation.

I watch that second square to judge myself and make adjustments before you judge me, too. I try to ensure that I look like I’m listening, even when I really am. I smile and nod. I check my RBF. I dial it back when I seem too eager… even if I am. Because I don’t know if I’m pinned on someone’s screen, or if someone is watching my little panoptic prison box, or if everyone in the entire meeting is actually scrolling Twitter rather than looking at all.

Just in case, I self-curate. I tilt my head just so to minimize the glare in my glasses.

Why am I stuck in an ongoing and exhausting cycle of self-curation?

Fear.

I’m counteracting vulnerability. I’m closing myself off to true connection, which feels so impossible through the mediatized format anyway, but just to be safe… I focus on my own appearance, and I ensure that everything is just so, because I could be being watched.

So, what does this have to do with intimacy, exactly?

In performing intimacy for She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms, we are designing a language of vulnerability that mirrors our actual experiences within Zoom.

We’ve spent weeks building up characters’ backstories; how they met, what their first impressions of each other were, what they associate with each other now. And we’ve identified the relationships that are characterized by trust and openness to vulnerability, and those that aren’t.

Our blocking, now, is based upon these realizations.

Yep, we’ve blocked eye contact.

When a connection isn’t characterized by closeness and trust, there’s no eye contact. But when a character needs something from another so badly that they are willing to open themselves up to vulnerability… then, they directly address the camera, eyes probing the character their speaking to, yearning for connection, or perhaps so caught up in the emotion of that connection that the need for self-curation falls away.

We use distance, as well, and other forms of movement, obviously. But our use of eye contact, I hope, will be the most effective, pulling the audience—who will be watching what we record—into the emotionally vulnerable moments. Connecting, despite the virtual format. Feeling with and for our characters.

Because theatre, when in person, creates virtual, imaginary worlds in real, embodied space. But we’re doing the opposite. The SKM cast and crew are using connections occurring within virtual space in attempt to embody a real and emotional world.