Published on 23/12/2020 – Updated on 14/12/2025 – “The Soulignac Brothers” is the story of a creative collective exploring new rituals in virtual worlds, an in-game video project produced with my brother during the lockdown of 2020. Living 10,000 km apart at the time (Paris – Saigon), looking for new usages to overcome distance, we decided to get together in-game to celebrate Christmas, have fun, chat and experiment the potentials of the metaverse. Part of the Virtual Tourism Project, a series of photos and videos dedicated to the work of game designers, developers, and a way to keep memory of our excursions in virtual worlds.
Story
Reconnecting despite the pandemic
In December 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and severe travel restrictions, my brother Thibaut and I were living 10,000 km apart. He was in Paris, while I was in Saigon (Vietnam). We began to wonder how we might see each other for the holidays despite these constraints. In previous years, I would usually travel physically for the holidays, by plane, thereby generating an excessive and unreasonable amount of carbon emissions. We could also have chosen to connect through voice or video calls. However, as my brother and I share the same passion for video games and new technologies, and had previously collaborated on the GTA 4 episode of the Virtual Tourism Series, comparing Los Angeles and Los Santos, we ultimately decided to simply meet in our favorite video game: Red Dead Redemption 2.
Experimenting in cyberspace
Until then, the Virtual Tourism Series had been a very solitary project; it soon became a family matter, a collaborative project between brothers sharing the same passion. The objective was simple: to reunite despite the restrictions, to talk, to have fun, and to try to preserve a tangible memory of that moment. This simple idea gradually evolved into a video project, in the spirit of “Machinima,” which can now naturally be found on our YouTube channel. Through this modest experiment, we also aim to document the ways in which new rituals are emerging within virtual worlds, in response — or not, to the upheavals of the real world. This project remains in constant writing and development, as the potential of the metaverse is still, to this day, in the process of physical and theoretical structuring within our cyberspace.
New rituals
Augmented video calls
My brother and I had a lot of fun playing and exploring, but mostly we talked for hours. Not just about what was happening in the game, but also about what was happening in our real lives. Two brothers having a long augmented video conversation, plain and simple. A conversation that turned into a three-day creative collaboration, carried out remotely between Paris in France and Saigon in Vietnam. The result of this social experiment is a short video souvenir of the two of us, which faithfully reflects the pleasure we have in discussing and creating together. Other episodes may be created in the near future, but this will depend on the time available within the siblings, because reality and encounters in real life are and will always be a priority for us.
Gamification of the family time
After those first digital vacation experience with my brother, we realized that there were many ways to spend time with loved ones, including in cyberspace. These are truly fascinating times : despite the mobility constraints of the 2020-2021 period and future restrictions linked to the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels, we are fortunate to have the arts and technologies capable of creating immersive virtual worlds, enabling us to simulate a new decorum for our cyber-meetings. It’s up to us to make these new places our own, inventing new rituals based on pleasure with joy and public interest.
Metaverse
Shifting, mental travel and fictional pact
Our brains, the result of a long evolutionary process, react emotionally and physiologically in similar ways to real and simulated experiences. Video games, like literature and cinema, exploit this ability to immerse ourselves in alternative realities. The fictional pact or «shifting» within the reality shifters community, allowing us to believe, at least temporarily, in these worlds. This capacity for immersion and mental travel, through meditation techniques of hypnotic trance and self-hypnosis, intensifies our experience of shared stories. This phenomenon is also at work when you play an online video game with people you love. It improves and even reinvents long-distance relationships. It reduces feelings of distance and loneliness by reinforcing the sense of presence, which is essential to any human relationship. Read more about «The shifting territories of mental travel».
The future of long-distance relationships – The real potential of the metaverse
My brother and I didn’t just “play a video game”, we travelled together in a completely fictional, naturalistic and neo-realistic universe developed by the visionary American studio Rockstar Games. This outstanding virtual space – Red Dead Redemption 2, generates real and lasting emotions, and is considered to be one of the most graphically beautiful existing game. It’s a new theme park, where the risk of accidents is zero and memories can be documented and shared ad infinitum. Wouldn’t this be the ideal place to spend time and chat with loved ones when face-to-face meetings aren’t possible? And finally, isn’t this the metaverse as it should be?
© 2020 The Soulignac Brothers | Virtual Tourism in the USA – Red Dead Redemption 2. Creative walks and videography in video games. © Rockstar Games (game designer). © Thibaut & François Soulignac (in-game videographers). Technique: video capture on PlayStation 4 Pro, in December 2020. Virtual Tourism Project is a series of photos et videos dedicated to the work of game designers, developers, and a way to keep memory of our virtual excursions in the metaverse. “The Soulignac Brothers” is a creative collective exploring new rituals in virtual worlds. Discover their YouTube Gaming channel.