{"id":4054,"date":"2017-05-16T00:06:08","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T08:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/Becomeimmersed.com\/?p=4054"},"modified":"2022-07-19T16:45:48","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T23:45:48","slug":"lust-experience-registration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/lust-experience-registration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lust Experience – Registration Shatters the Fourth Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past several months, I, along with many others, have willingly given in to The Lust Experience<\/a>\u00a0(for a recap of the prologue, please click here<\/a>). During this time, we\u2019ve been introduced to new characters and ideas. Noah Sinclair<\/strong>, an aggressive<\/a> self-help<\/a> guru<\/a> who runs The System<\/em><\/a> with his wife, Sarah<\/strong> – they\u2019ve been dealing with some problems, both marital and business. Stacey Erikson<\/strong> runs iConfidant<\/em><\/a>, aiming to help those involved find \u201ca friendship<\/a> that transcends physical boundaries.\u201d Those iConfidants have started reaching out and corresponding with everyone who signed up for the closed beta test.<\/p>\n

On Monday, May 1st, in a group with three others, I find myself in a warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles. Am I there to attend a live training for The System with Noah Sinclair? Will I meet my iConfidant or someone else from the company? No. I am there for in person registration for The Lust Experience.<\/p>\n

Wait, what?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
Photo by Tim Redman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stephanie Hyd<\/strong>en<\/strong>, recognizable to many of us as one of the handlers in The Tension Experience<\/em>, greets us, escorts us into the warehouse for our registration. She offers me the chance to purchase merchandise from The\u00a0Tension Experience<\/em>, including Overseer\u2019s red dress, which would only set the buyer back a cool $500. Gordon Bijelonic<\/strong>, the producer of The Tension Experience<\/em>, paces back and forth, engaged in a deep conversation on his phone while avoiding the participants. I speak briefly with Tina<\/strong>, a real estate agent who has apparently been working with \u201cthis group\u201d for two years.<\/p>\n

Who exactly is this group she is working for? The same people the other participants and I would be meeting with: investors<\/strong> in The Lust Experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While stray cats wander the warehouse, we are taken over to a waiting area to relax before the registration begins. From there, Stephanie<\/strong> sends each of us to a different investor. My time comes and I\u2019m ushered to a table littered with food containers, scattered with cigarette butts. A man with a greying beard sits there, nonchalantly inhaling on a fresh cigarette. He doesn\u2019t appear particularly happy to see me and as I sit down, he blows smoke in my face.<\/p>\n

I sit, and I wait. Eventually, with an accent I can\u2019t place, he asks if I have any questions for him. Questions spill out of me: \u201cwhat is this registration?\u201d, \u201cwhat are you doing here?\u201d, \u201cwhat am I <\/em>doing here?\u201d He declines to answer some and dodges the rest, leaving me wondering why those are the best questions I could come up with. I ask him his name, and finally get an answer out of him – Remy<\/strong>. He asks why I\u2019m interested in immersive theater and I explain, \u201cIt\u2019s always different and you never know exactly what\u2019s going to happen. There\u2019s an excitement to it. Like today’s registration, I had no idea what I was walking into\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He accepts my answer, but appears irritated by the whole situation. He explains that they\u2019re trying to correct what happened with The Tension Experience<\/em>. \u201cIt was too convoluted and too complex. We want something more streamlined this year.\u201d I ask about the Sinclairs<\/strong> and he rebuffs me: \u201cI\u2019m the one asking the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remy<\/strong> takes the opportunity to rant about his chair (\u201cI normally sit on a $12,000 work of art and they have me sitting on this,\u201d as he gestures at his cheap folding chair) and about Walmarts with McDonald\u2019s in them (\u201cBabies should be fat, y\u2019know? But not that fat\u201d) dragging on his cigarette the whole time. He asks if I watch football and I acknowledge that I do. He surmises that all Americans must with more than a hint of disdain in his voice, so I ask him what sports he watches and am rebuffed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI<\/em> ask the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pulls out a piece of paper that reads, \u201cI promise to fully submit myself to The Lust Experience<\/em>.\u201d There\u2019s a line for my signature, the number 26 in the bottom right corner, and some kind of design on the back. He doesn\u2019t have a pen for me to sign with, but is unconcerned as he is now finished with me.<\/p>\n

You may be wondering more about the other investors. Well, I can help a little on that front. Nicole<\/strong> was flirty, suggestive, and probed into the sex lives of some who met with her. She had an affinity for selfies and even took some with a few of the participants she talked to. Marcos<\/strong> was most interested in marketing immersive events and the locations they could be held in. He asked those who spoke with him what they thought of different possible locations, judging only by the look of the place. Abe<\/strong> had recently lost her husband and after investing a million dollars into this project wanted to make sure it was being well spent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
Photo by Nicole (and Cristen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am taken to a waiting area near the warehouse\u2019s makeshift kitchen and a friend,\u00a0Maxwell, is brought over soon after. We take a second to compare our papers. He\u2019s signed his, but I still haven\u2019t gotten a hold of a pen. We put the designs on our papers together, but we\u2019re missing a few pieces (47 pieces in fact, as we would later learn) and can\u2019t make heads nor tails of it. A door opens nearby and a man in a dark suit begins banging a large stick on the ground while beckoning Maxwell inside. Just what is this registration?<\/em><\/p>\n

I wait alone until another participant is escorted over, but is escorted away to talk to Nicole<\/strong> just as quickly. I take a quick picture of my form and as Tina<\/strong> drifts closer, I ask her for a pen. Before she can return, the door opens again; the man bangs his stick on the ground and it is my turn to be summoned inside.<\/p>\n

The room is a back office bathed in reddish light; there are couches in the corner, and tables and desks filled with processing papers and documents on participants from The Tension Experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The man with the stick instructs me to stand in front of him in the middle of the room. His accent is indistinguishable, but different than Remy\u2019s. He moves in close and indicates that he doesn\u2019t like it here. I ask where here<\/em> is, \u201cThe room? The dark? America?\u201d He doesn\u2019t answer and continues to stare at me. Suddenly he grabs a box of the paperwork from behind him and throws it across the room with a yell.<\/p>\n

He returns his focus to me and stares into my eyes, so I meet his gaze. He places his hand on my chest to feel my heartbeat while our eyes remained locked. He leans in closer and I have no clue what he\u2019s doing until he takes a deep sniff. He relaxes and I do too, not realizing how tense I\u2019ve been. \u201cYou are kind and gentle,\u201d he says to me before continuing, \u201cand you\u2019ll need this (he gestures to my head) and this (he gestures to my heart).\u201d<\/p>\n

The man asks me to think of a secret that I haven\u2019t admitted to anyone, including myself, and then spins me around to face a mirror I hadn\u2019t even realized was there.<\/p>\n

We both stare into the mirror until I ask him whether he wants me to say it out loud. He doesn\u2019t respond, so I continue to stare at our reflection until he spins me around again.<\/p>\n

He says something to me about being with \u201cthem\u201d, but I have no recollection of his exact words. I am so wrapped up in the thoughts I had while staring into the mirror that everything here bleeds together.<\/p>\n

He shows me to the door and opens it, I start to walk out and he slams it shut (\u201cNot yet.\u201d) before opening it again (\u201cOkay now.\u201d) to let me out into a smaller room. Stephanie opens another door and walks me back outside the warehouse.<\/p>\n

With that came the end of the registration and a further warping of the space where the fourth wall used to be after Tension<\/em>. By introducing participants to the investors,<\/strong> and allowing us to talk about The Lust Experience<\/em> itself, everything was sent spinning.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, questions flood my head:<\/p>\n

Were the people at the warehouse actual investors in Tension<\/em> and Lust<\/em>? Gordon<\/strong> is still involved on some level – are Darren Lynn Bousman<\/strong> or Clint Sears<\/strong>? Was Tension<\/em> really just supposed to be a production and were all those characters really just characters? Did Marcos<\/strong> and Abe<\/strong> appear more normal because they were just normal investors or because they were written that way? How does all of this fit together?<\/p>\n

What exactly is going on?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Photo by Kimberly Stewart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All of the afternoon\u2019s events worked to blur the boundaries of what was actually happening. The questions asked by the investors<\/strong> would have been of legitimate interest to those pouring money into an immersive theater event. While that was happening, one of the investors was asking participants questions about their sexual proclivities one minute and taking selfies the next. Everyone was asked to sign a strange pledge, made stranger later, before meeting a man who seemed to have nothing to do with the investors<\/strong>. Was he just part of a scene to give those who showed up some kind of immersive experience? Some of what happened may have been real and some of it may have been artifice, but after passing through the warehouse, it had all knocked me off balance.<\/p>\n

And with what looked like the end of the day, Lust<\/em>\u2019s first major in person event was over. What else could really happen?<\/p>\n

Turns out, Noah Sinclair<\/strong> could happen.<\/p>\n

He makes a late night call to Meghan<\/a>, a participant in possession of his burner phone, telling her to meet him downtown. She posts to the Lust<\/em> forums that she has been \u201cactivated\u201d. Then the waiting game begins.<\/p>\n

While I try to stay awake, I fiddle around my living room. Eventually, I collapse onto the couch and glance at my phone. There\u2019s a Periscope alert and in a brief moment of panic I realize I hadn\u2019t turned the sound on my phone on.<\/p>\n

As I join the broadcast, I see that Noah<\/strong> has taken over Meghan\u2019s Periscope<\/a>. He spins around with the phone in his hand to show that they\u2019re in the warehouse from that afternoon. He starts off by addressing his dad<\/strong>, making it clear he isn\u2019t where he\u2019s supposed to be, and then all of the participants who had signed up without \u201cany f*cking clue what you were getting in to.\u201d While he continues talking, he instructs Meghan to start flipping over sheets of paper that had been meticulously laid out on the floor of the warehouse.<\/p>\n

Noah<\/strong> reveals a box of paperwork he has dug up in the warehouse containing processing information from Tension<\/em> with all of the \u201cemotional data\u201d they had collected from their last \u201cexperiment.\u201d He explains that he had been sent into The Tension Experience<\/em> to clean up the mess, but realizes he was \u201ca huge f*cking failure\u201d even though he had had \u201cso much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a shocking moment, Noah<\/strong> indicates that his father<\/strong> is holding Sarah Sinclair<\/strong>, seemingly against her will. Noah<\/strong> threatens to air out his dad<\/strong>\u2019s secrets and expose his plans if he won\u2019t let Sarah<\/strong> go. I\u2019m frustrated when Noah<\/strong> doesn\u2019t elaborate on what exactly those goals, but he does give a hint. Meghan has completed her task, so Noah<\/strong> turns the camera to the warehouse floor.<\/p>\n

My stomach drops as a stunning image, made up of the papers (almost) everyone who went through registration earlier signed, is revealed. Put together, the papers reveal an inverted version of the Lust<\/em> logo, missing the key and wings, inside an alchemical Ouroboros. Beneath that, the words, \u201cI pledge my desire for their sacrifice and freedom.\u201d Noah<\/strong> asks those who had signed and are watching what they had gotten themselves into. In the moment, I think that I lucked out by meeting with Remy<\/strong>; he made no effort to make sure I signed the paper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the big reveal, Noah<\/strong> addresses his father and says he wants to, \u201cgo back to business as usual,\u201d while making sure Sarah<\/strong> is safe. He signs off with a, \u201cpeace bitches,\u201d and the Periscope ends.<\/p>\n

I had been on the verge of falling asleep before the Periscope started, but now I\u2019m electric. Things are even more twisted than before. A few hours earlier Noah<\/strong> had been a character in The Lust Experience<\/em> Prologue, an immersive theater piece, but now he\u2019s trying to make sure his wife is safe while issuing ultimatums to his father<\/strong>. The sheet of paper people had signed now looks like it is part of some larger plot.<\/p>\n

Was this part of The Lust Experience<\/em> that the investors<\/strong> had been researching earlier during our registration? Were the investors<\/strong> really investors in the show? What exactly had so many people signed and were the investors<\/strong>\u00a0complacent in it?<\/p>\n

Again, what exactly is going on?<\/em><\/p>\n

It still isn\u2019t clear, but that\u2019s what makes this so exciting. The lines are so blurry and even when they start to come into focus, ever so slightly, they can be blurred beyond recognition again in minutes. As Lust<\/em> moves into its first chapter following registration, the state of the fourth wall is in shambles and we are all left to figure out what that means as we move forward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For more information on The Lust Experience, check their\u00a0Website<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>; for\u00a0iConfidant, check their Website<\/a>\u00a0and Facebook<\/a>; and for The System, check their\u00a0Website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

To catch up on the events previous to this registration, please check out our recap of The Lust Experience Prologue<\/a>. Phone registrations may be coming soon for those who missed this event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past several months, I, along with many others, have willingly given in to The Lust Experience\u00a0(for a recap of the prologue, please click here). During this time, we\u2019ve been introduced to new characters and ideas. Noah Sinclair, an aggressive self-help guru who runs The System with his wife, Sarah – they\u2019ve been dealing…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[81,136],"tags":[138,139,2007,29,1666,2657,137,2008],"yst_prominent_words":[2431,1554,188,2687,258,2672,4379,211,2686,5596,808,239,1765,559,22579,2671,505,504,2676,2673],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Trash-Kitty.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrPML-13o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27708,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4054\/revisions\/27708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4054"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}