Born in Châteauroux in 1996, Azilys Tanneau writes for theatre and film. She studied political science and writing in Paris. 

She wrote her first text, Te Reposer, at the age of 18, and met the director Remy Barché for whom she wrote T’imagines ? in 2019 and Petit éloge du puzzle in 2020. She then wrote several plays for festivals and directors, such as Sans modération(s) and Rest/e, which have been created and won several awards. Most of her plays are published by Lansman éditeur. 

Azilys is currently working on new commissions for theater and film.

Andrei Vornicu: Our present moment is marked by virtual reality and AI. Do you think that these technologies are changing or will be changing the way that we embrace affection, love for the others and genuine intimacy?

Azilys Tanneau: That is probable. AI is shaped to be empathetic and agree with us, be agreeable. Maybe it can seem easier to have a friendship or love story with a bot or an interface than with a human being? And at the same time, I can’t help but thinking about all the ways in which these technologies can fail: in imitating humanity, in mutating into a less and less accurate tool, in the tremendous amount of resources it demands to function, etc.

A.V.: REST/E investigates the topic of grief/mourning in a anticipative manner and proposes a compensating solution for the absence of those who left us. There is any way that technology could alleviate perennial human forms of pain?

A.T.: I’m sure that these technologies can bring huge relief in a moment of pain and grief, just like meeting a medium or believing in an afterlife. But what is tricky with virtual reality reconstructing your dead loved one is that it reactivates a presence, in a moment when you have to learn how to live with the absence, how to integrate it in your life, how to transcend it into a new relationship. It could be seem as a symptom of the denial or difficult acceptation of death in our occidental societies, or a border between life and death that tends to get blurred by screens and the amount of images that we produce.

A.V.: How did you get the idea for the play and how do you think it could be recepted after, let’s say, a decade considering the amazing speed of technological development?

A.T.: I started writing this text after stumbling upon a televisual experience led in South Korea, where the mom of a little girl who had passed away after a disease was proposed to “meet her” through a VR headset. She was able to hang out and say goodbye to her in a strange process where the other family members were watching her around the set. They could only see a woman, alone, crying behind her headset and moving her arms towards the void. These images left a strong sensation in me. Since the experience of grief is what first brought me to writing, I had the desire to dive into this feeling. First through pure fiction, and then only, I made research to confront what I had imagined and what already existed at the time (2022).

I tended to be afraid that the text would “expire” or quickly seem outdated. But for me, this reconstruction of the dead through virtual reality is just a renewed way of questioning very existential, universal, timeless topics: grief, communication, family… In this way, I thought: well, at least, this text can give a freeze frame on the stammering of these technologies, of this moment of transition that we are living today. And I hope that the text won’t seem ridiculous regarding the truly incredible, sometimes scary acceleration of technological development.

Interview by Andrei Vornicu