Silent Radar

Silent Radar tells the story of two transgender friends who spend most of their life on the virtual reality platform VR Chat.

“I maybe have more of a connection to my avatar than I do to my physical self. That was the epitome of the person I wanted to become. I now want to be there all the time so I can be this person, especially to constantly relive the memory of realizing who I was. My VR self influences my real self and vice-versa. I’m fully integrated at this point.” - Silent

Silent and Radar, two transgender friends who spend most of their time on the virtual reality platform VR Chat, have found there a true sense of belonging. For many, this growing community of about 70.000 people has acted as a space to explore identity and overcome boundaries: walls, borders, language… And in this, to create an environment of limitless, fast-paced creative expression.

Living in New York, Radar experiences VR as “a simulation of a world that doesn't have landlords.” The rent-stabilized apartment complex in which she lives with her parents and sibling is the only she has ever known. “I just turned 30, and I live in the same apartment that I've lived in my entire life. And I will never leave. Or rather, I want to leave, but I cannot afford to live anywhere in the city. When I walk around the Lower East Side, there’s a bunch of closed-down storefronts. I remember what used to be there. I walk and there's five weed stores that all have the same fake linoleum wood floor, and the same shitty neon signs.” For them, it is never about the technology itself, but always about the human emotional need and how it is being satisfied.

As such, this story goes beyond tech or the notion of ‘digital future’. Rather, it speaks to the ideas of community and space — those lacking in one’s immediate, real, surroundings. VRChat is the punk underground scene of virtual reality, largely unknown by an audience numbed by the techno-futurist idea of the Metaverse.

By combining several photographic forms (portraits, still and daily life, virtual reality vignettes, and large format photographs), this project confronts and blends the idea of the real and the non-real, the virtual and the tangible, the digital and the analog.

Through these two personal stories, Silent Radar explores the liminal space between physical and virtual reality. When both worlds start to merge, how is the ‘self’ defined? How does the strong connection to our digital selves transform our relationship with reality?

Link to the short documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luto8ir3JO8&t=2s&ab_channel=PaolaChapdelainePhotography

Link to the VR Exhibition recording (led by Silent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTn2O_JsiI&ab_channel=PaolaChapdelainePhotography

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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The large tree of Silent’s front yard, seen from inside her house. Living in a small town in Connecticut, Silent's main way of socializing is through VR Chat. Daily, she experiences immediate jumps between her quiet life in a rural landscape, and her buoyant virtual life.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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(Right) Portrait of Silent. (Left) Disassembled game boy, Silent’s first digital device — which her brother now dismantles to create personalized music boxes. She comments“It’s like the incomplete inners of a Game Boy; there’s another circuit board that should be there, further playing into this concussion allegory. You have the display and the screen still attached, everything that would be seen, but the guts and the brains of the Game Boy are missing. Which, funny enough, how would anyone know but me?” Silent suffered a concussion in high school, which derailed much of her functioning for several years, until she found help through a neurofeedback training program. The program re-taught her brain to control itself by measuring electrical waves through visual exercises. The many years that went untreated, Silent spent them gaming, web-diving, and playing the trumpet on tour with her high school band. These years were a prelude to her discovery of Virtual Reality, which — in her own words — saved her life.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Behind the garage door sprawls a basement workshop filled with planks, half-made pieces of furniture, wires and tools… at the back of which is located Silent's space. Three computer monitors are placed side by side, the middle one turned vertically, specifically dedicated to her Discord chat. To the side of her desk is a vintage couch that she lies on to join Virtual Reality.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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(Right) Portrait of Radar, who’s VRChat avatar is a 3.7-feet tall mouse. The avatar was made based on a real-life outfit including a made's dress and two furry ears - worn here. (Left) Radar’s compass. If Radar is not entirely anti-technology, she definitely is “analog.” She does not use a smart phone but a compass to get around. As a desktop user, she also does not use a headset to join VR but an old CRT-monitor. For her, VR is a way to create a space beyond her physical one. "I live in the same apartment that I've lived in my entire life. I just turned 30, I was born here, I never left, and I will never leave. Or rather, I want to leave. But I also can't. I cannot afford to live anywhere in the city, besides the rent control apartment with my entire family. Because we live in a society where landlords exist. And VR Chat is a kind of simulation of a world that doesn't have landlords. It doesn't cost money to keep a world up and running. And it doesn't matter if nobody shows up to your world, or your event or your whatever, because it's still there."

© Paola Chapdelaine - A light of Sanctum, the Virtual Reality club that Silent helps run, photographed through her VR headset.
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A light of Sanctum, the Virtual Reality club that Silent helps run, photographed through her VR headset.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Scene from a party during which Silent performed a DJ set. Her work as a DJ and VJ in Virtual Reality have brought her attention by organizers in the real world. The event was organized by its host for the first time in real life since the pandemic and brought together people from the VR scene and outside of it — making two worlds meet. The two windows that appear in the back are those of a subway train, which runs along the building.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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(Left) Close-up of the tree in Silent’s front yard (Right) Cable from the basement in which Silent has set up her Virtual Reality station. The space is also used by her brother for electronic work and by her father as a wood workshop. These images speak to the duality of selves experienced by VR users. Virtual Reality has enabled Silent to explore multiple facets of her identity. She considers her avatar another version of herself. “I don't have any disconnect from it, actually; I maybe have more of a connection to my avatar than I do to my physical self. That was the epitome of the person I wanted to become. I want to be there now all the time so I can be this person, especially to constantly relive that memory of me realizing who I was. My ‘VR self’ influences my ‘real self’ and vice-versa. I am fully integrated at this point,’ she says. "A lot of people will use VR to escape their reality and live a totally different one. I would like to see people fuse the two together more. There are so many trans women that are closeted.”

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Portrait of Silent behind her green screen. As a Virtual Reality drone racing champion, she uses a green screen while competing online. Because she reveals herself on camera, those moments involve more beauty preparation, so she can feel comfortable while competing in the Women's Cup. Outside of VR simulator competitions, she also flies her real drone, and is portrayed holding her remote controller. Though she is among the top-200 fastest pilots worldwide, real-life drone racing has a steep cost barrier. In addition, the American drone-racing scene takes place mostly in the Midwest, where she feels a lot of fear related to being a trans woman taking part in these events.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Electronic circuits
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Electronic circuits

© Paola Chapdelaine - Silent’s niece, Autumn, among the trees surrounding their family house.
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Silent’s niece, Autumn, among the trees surrounding their family house.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Sketch drawn digitally by Radar to connect her CRT monitor (on which she joins VRChat) to the TV that sits in front of her DJ set — in order to see the VR scene while she is playing.

© Paola Chapdelaine - A scene from their VR world, photographed through a headset.
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A scene from their VR world, photographed through a headset.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Signs that Silent hangs on her door when she is in VR.
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Signs that Silent hangs on her door when she is in VR.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Silent in her bathroom. She started a more thorough hygiene ritual after she started spending most of her days in VR, as her skin started breaking out from wearing the headset.

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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Reflection from Silent about the significance of the gazebo in her life. Text transcription: "The gazebo became my sanctuary. Seven years of pensive thought and surfing the internet. There, I became hyper-aware, just kind of observing from this place in the universe. One day, I discovered a group of ants farming aphids on the end of a vine, a small glimpse into the complex workings of my surroundi

© Paola Chapdelaine - Image from the Silent Radar photography project
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(Left) The gazebo outside of Silent’s house, in which she spent seven years in a contemplative state after suffering a concussion in high-school. The phone holder directed towards the chair let her spend hours at times diving and exploring the internet. Finding Virtual Reality in 2020 allowed her to explore her identity through multiple selves.(Right) The gazebo at night.

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