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  • Arts

YUM! – WHEN OPERA MEETS IMMERSION
CREATING NEW ARTISTIC LANGUAGES WITH XR, AI AND MIXED REALITY

Wed November 11, 2026 05:00 pm CET

What happens when opera doesn’t simply become immersive – but collides with XR, AI and Mixed Reality to create something new?

Following its premiere at the Bregenz Festival 2026, YUM! offers a fascinating case study in how emerging technologies can become part of a new artistic language. The participatory XR music theatre brings together live performance, music, physical space and multiple layers of digital reality, while using a dystopian dinner to explore consumption, inequality and the increasingly blurred boundaries between reality and illusion.

Wen Liu, Artistic Director of Studio M.A.R.S., joins XR Concept Advisor Flavia Mazzanti to reflect on the creative process and lessons learned from bringing YUM! to the stage. Where can immersive technology expand established art forms and what happens when artists stop treating XR as a medium and start using it to invent new ones?

Format

Fireside Chat

App

VRChat

Location

BRIGHT VR Hub

Duration

45 min

Access via

Presenter

Wen Liu
Composer & Multimedia Artist, Founder & Artistic Director at Studio M.A.R.S.

Wen Liu is a multi-award-winning composer, media artist, and artistic researcher known for her boundary-pushing practice spanning experimental composition, opera, visual art, performance, AI, XR, gaming, and participatory technologies. Her work has been presented and supported internationally by FEDORA, S+T+ARTS, Creative Europe, Ars Electronica, Wien Modern, Bregenzer Festspiele, and La Biennale di Venezia. Her numerous honors include the Austrian Federal Staatsstipendium, City of Vienna Förderungspreis for Music, and Theodor Körner Prize. She is the founder and artistic director Studio M.A.R.S., an interdisciplinary collective for multimedia storytelling and immersive opera.

Moderator

Flavia Mazzanti
Multimedia Artist & Co-founder of Immerea
© Martin Holtkamp

Flavia Mazzanti is multimedia artist and co-founder of Immerea – an indie studio based in Vienna focusing on the development of VR Games and interactive Installations -, co-organizer of XR Austria, and active as public speaker and university lecturer. Listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list of 2023, Flavia graduated with distinction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2020. Her works have been shown and awarded at exhibitions and festivals worldwide, among others the Ars Electronica Festival (Linz, AT), DIG Shibuya (Tokyo, JP), Museums Kunst Haus Wien (Vienna, AT) and Kunsthaus Graz (Graz, AT), FILE Festival, (São Paulo, BR), Digital Arts Festival (Zurich, CH).

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