“Viens Valeur” | ASMR interactive multidisciplinary project – Rachel M. Cholz (Fr)

“Viens Valeur” (Come Values) is interested in the fetishism of objects as sound and poetic possibilities. He plays with semiotic paradoxes in the face of the disinterest of the object as a bearer of meaning. A discrepancy thus proposing another form of narration which questions the image through the networks and the enhancement of the icon of today.

Interactive project with a particular writing, it is directly inspired by the ASMR process by offering an unprecedented dramaturgy with several youtubers for their own channel. The project has so far developed around four collaborations.

“The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response”, is a distinct, pleasant sensation of tingling or shivering in the skull, scalp or peripheral areas of the body, in response to a stimulus. visual, auditory, olfactory or cognitive.

It was in 2008 that Jennifer Allen, an American cybersecurity professional, realized that several videos caused her a pleasant and soothing feeling. In 2009, she found a message from a user on a forum evoking this mysterious sensation, described as an “orgasm” of the brain. Internet users are starting to share videos that trigger the desired sensation. In order to prevent this cerebral pleasure from being associated with eroticism, Jennifer Allen decides to find a scientific name for the phenomenon (with a reference to the energy pathways of Chinese medicine -meridian- and the reaction specific to each individual -autonomous- facing external elements).

Viens Valeur - A long-term project

“Viens Valeur”, as a project, is interested in the place of the icon in contemporary society. First of all through the diversion of the semiotics of objects for auditory purposes, but also vis-à-vis the networking of the image, taken here in the broad sense.

The project was developed around ASMR, this trend which today, through thousands of Youtube videos, participates in a real collective fiction and offers a whole range of interactive games, between the staging, the process , the role of objects, sound and textual interactivity, and the sociological approach.

The ASMR was initially a process interested only in sounds, considering only the object and the hands in the framing. Sound refers in particular to known sensations: memories that reassure us. We focus in particular on the interlocutor: we come close to the parameters of hypnosis by healing through memories.

Very quickly, ASMR content producers got involved visually, working on embodiment, beauty, visual identity in an iconic way, as muses and goddesses would do. This appropriation of ASMR (in several forms, such as the theme of well-being, food or the presentation of commercial products) always refers to this same face to face. A phenomenal number of views, for increased intimacy.

ASMR seems representative of a necessary intimacy in a flow of information where each person takes the time to watch and listen, in complete withdrawal, to sounds that are supposed to stimulate and captivate them individually, with to do this a large-scale listening that sometimes exceeds millions of views. A view is also valuable, it allows youtubers to earn money, but above all to place products. The number of views determines the value. The gesture becomes value. The time spent watching the video is a monetary issue.

It is not a question of criticizing this phenomenon, nor is it a question of praising this trend and literally reusing its codifications to make its effects felt. It is a question here of perceiving the myths.

The icons

Currently, ‘Viens Valeur’ uses the audiovisual material produced by four youtubers with whom Rachel M. Cholz works in close collaboration.

There is a real gap between the time spent making the video, and its admissibility (a few hours of work for a video, for an average of 60,000 views). This is why youtubers are perceived here as goddesses, icons, having a real influence on their Internet users who remain faithful to them. They each have their own personality while influencing each other.

The gesture and the word

The gesture speaks. The gestures of each one are exchanged and mixed with the various spaces represented. We are here in a choreography of everyday life.

The word is also regularly diverted from its primary meaning for auditory purposes. There is thus the possibility of working on all the paradoxes of the language when it is diverted from its lexical fields. These processes leave a real opportunity for poetic and sonic games. Proposing a poetic dramaturgy that makes sense through this interface makes it possible to juggle between climates diverted from their context. The semiological possibilities of this project combine poetry and dramaturgical issues in a framework that aims to be more trendy and popular.

Although the final purpose is an interactive multi-channel video installation, this long-term project provides for other intermediate productions: single-band video installation, sound, audiovisual performance…