What was once shocking now seems incredibly innocent
AI technology animated static 1970s erotic magazine content into short films, available on Cultpix with planned physical media releases on Blu-ray and VHS. Project aims to contrast vintage 'shocking' adult material with modern standards, exploring how societal attitudes toward human bodies and sexuality have shifted over 50 years.
- Thomas Meier, Norwegian director at Multiformat, created AI-animated shorts from 1970s erotic magazines
- Content available on Cultpix streaming platform; physical releases planned on Blu-ray and VHS via Klubb Super 8
- Project debuted at Cannes Film Festival 2026
- Rickard Gramfors (Cultpix CEO) stated the goal is to spark debate on how attitudes toward sexuality and the human body have evolved over fifty years
A Norwegian director unveiled AI-generated erotic shorts at Cannes 2026, animating 1970s magazine imagery to spark debate on evolving attitudes toward sexuality and technology.
At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, a Norwegian director named Thomas Meier unveiled something that would not have fit comfortably in any previous year's program: a collection of short films generated entirely by artificial intelligence, sourced from the static pages of erotic magazines printed fifty years earlier. Meier's company, Multiformat, had taken photographs from 1970s adult publications and used AI to animate them—adding movement, color grading, sound, and dialogue where there had been only stillness and silence.
The shorts are now available on Cultpix, a streaming platform, with plans to release them on physical media: Blu-ray discs and VHS tapes, distributed through Klubb Super 8. It is a deliberately retro gesture, wrapping a cutting-edge technology in the formats of the very era being excavated.
Rickard Gramfors, CEO and cofounder of Cultpix, framed the project not as titillation but as provocation—a way to make visible how much has shifted in our collective understanding of the body and desire. What shocked audiences in the 1970s, he argued, now reads as almost quaint. The material itself is half a century old; the technology that brings it to life is brand new. The gap between them is the point.
"We want to use the newest technologies to stimulate debate about the use of images that have existed for about fifty years," Gramfors said. He elaborated: "What was once considered shocking adult material now seems incredibly innocent by today's standards. By giving life to these static images through AI, we are creating a conversation between the spicy aesthetics of the past and new technologies, exploring how our attitudes toward the human body and sexuality have evolved over fifty years."
The project sits at an intersection of several ongoing cultural conversations. There is the question of what AI should be used for, and whether animating archival material constitutes new creative expression or merely technical manipulation of existing work. There is the question of how we preserve and contextualize sexual imagery from earlier eras—whether we hide it, study it, or, as Meier and Gramfors have chosen, resurrect it in a new form and ask viewers to think about what has changed. And there is the simpler, more human question: what does it mean that something once forbidden now seems innocent, and what does that tell us about ourselves?
The debut at Cannes—a festival that has long been a space for cinema that pushes boundaries—suggests that the project's creators understood they were making something that needed to be seen in a context where formal experimentation and cultural commentary are expected. Whether the shorts will be remembered as a genuine intervention into how we think about sexuality and technology, or as a curiosity that briefly captured attention before fading, remains to be seen. What is clear is that they have already done what their creators intended: they have started a conversation.
Notable Quotes
We want to use the newest technologies to stimulate debate about the use of images that have existed for about fifty years.— Rickard Gramfors, CEO and cofounder of Cultpix
By giving life to these static images through AI, we are creating a conversation between the spicy aesthetics of the past and new technologies, exploring how our attitudes toward the human body and sexuality have evolved over fifty years.— Rickard Gramfors
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why animate these images at all? Why not just show the original photographs and let people draw their own conclusions about how attitudes have changed?
Because a still image lets you look away. It stays frozen, safely in the past. Animation creates presence. When you see a body move, when you hear a voice, it becomes harder to maintain distance. That discomfort—that's where the real thinking happens.
So this is deliberately meant to make people uncomfortable?
Not for its own sake. The discomfort is a tool. If you're uncomfortable watching something from the 1970s that was meant to be transgressive, you have to ask yourself why. Is it the content itself, or is it that you're seeing it through a lens that's fifty years more permissive? That's the conversation.
But couldn't someone argue that using AI to animate this material is just creating new erotic content, regardless of the stated intent?
Yes, absolutely. And that's a fair criticism. The line between archival commentary and new creation is genuinely blurry here. That ambiguity might be intentional—another part of what they're asking us to think about.
What happens when this gets released on VHS and Blu-ray? Does the format matter?
It matters enormously. VHS is the format these magazines' audience would have used. Blu-ray is what we use now. Releasing on both is saying: this work exists in multiple times simultaneously. It's not just nostalgia; it's a conversation across decades.