A Swedish vintage porn streaming site (Cultpix), in partnership with a Norwegian tech company (Multiformat), is using AI to turn the kind of photo-story erotic magazines that were popular in the 70s into porn videos. Not only that, but they are showcasing their first creation – “Sh(AI)ved vol. 1” – at the world-famous Cannes film festival, which is currently taking place in the South of France. On top of that, physical copies are planned in Blu-ray and even VHS for the ultimate retro experience. The venture is proving a hot talking point at Cannes, and along with the ethical and “artistic” issues it raises, may point to where the adult industry is heading as it slowly embraces AI.
To be honest, it’s surprising to me that nobody has tried this before. Five years ago, Pornhub made a marketing splash by announcing that they were “restoring” vintage porn scenes that dated as far back as the 19th century. But nothing much more came of that, and the seemingly natural and potentially lucrative marriage of AI with vintage erotica hasn’t really been attempted until today. Of course, the videos of Cultpix and Multiformat go far beyond what Pornhub was doing, and indeed, instead of attempting to “upscale” or “modernize” vintage porn, the Scandinavian companies are celebrating the retro glory of them by bringing classic magazines to life in video form.
Cultpix themselves describe it on their blog as a bold experiment, and it’s hard to disagree.
A bold experiment in film history and technology is unveiled today in Cannes: the world’s first AI-created vintage adult film. The collection of short vignettes will be available for streaming on Cultpix, with a subsequent physical release on BluRay and VHS from Klubb Super 8.
The films and technical solutions were developed by Thomas Meier of the Norwegian company Multiformat. Using the latest generative AI tools, Meier has created full motion video with colour and synchronised sound, dialogue and voice-over, inspired by erotic photo series from 1976 magazines (marking half a century since these images were first published).
For the attendees at Cannes, the use of AI-generated acting in movies is a controversial topic, even without the x-rated factor. But if Multiformat and Cultpix are looking to generate controversy, they may get more than they bargained for. Even the use of images of real people from decades ago for pornographic purposes is surely a moral and legal maze. Likely, most of the actors and actresses are deceased, but have the companies ascertained that, and did they seek the consent of any that are still living? These issues are even more pressing given that Cultpix is a Swedish based company, and Sweden has possibly the most draconian feminist anti-porn laws in the Western world, and not long ago extended laws against payments for sex to cover those who “tip” adult webcam performers.
Despite the chilling effect that legislation is having on the (now almost non-existent) adult industry in Sweden, Cultpix are stressing how relatively “innocent” the erotic magazines of the 1970s were.
“What was once considered shocking ‘adult’ material now seems remarkably innocent by today’s standards. By bringing these static images to life through AI, we’re creating a conversation between past risqué aesthetics and new technology, exploring how our attitudes to the human body and sexuality have evolved over fifty years.”
“Innocent” or not by today’s standards, they also make pointed reference to the fact that they were made at a time when Sweden was one of the most liberal and progressive nations on Earth when it came to porn, sex, and nudity.
The release arrives at a time of growing academic and curatorial interest in vintage erotica film. Earlier this year, Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles presented a season of ‘Eros’ films, paying tribute to the theatre’s history as an adult cinema in the 1970s. The Swedish Film Institute’s Cinemateket also hosted ‘Svenska Synden’ (Swedish Sin), a retrospective examining how Swedish cinema’s liberal attitudes to sexuality and nudity became an international phenomenon that scandalised censors worldwide.
It will be very interesting to see how this “bold experiment” of Multimax and Cultpix plays out. At the very least, we can hope that it may remind Swedes of their once very liberal past.
