Yuja Wang’s Playing with Fire Enters the 2026 Festival de Cannes Immersive Competition
VIVE Arts’ mixed reality collaboration with Yuja Wang redefines the classical concert experience and earns a place at the 2026 Cannes Immersive Competition.
VIVE Arts’ mixed reality collaboration with Yuja Wang redefines the classical concert experience and earns a place at the 2026 Cannes Immersive Competition.
Among the nine groundbreaking works selected from eight countries for the 2026 Immersive Competition at the Festival de Cannes, one project stands out for its bold reimagining of classical performance.
Playing with Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja Wang, produced by VIVE Arts, has been shortlisted for Best Immersive Work as part of the Festival’s third Immersive Competition, taking place from 12 to 22 May 2026 at the Carlton Hotel.
This year’s selection reflects the growing vitality of immersive art, from large-scale video installations to virtual and mixed reality experiences that continue to reshape how stories are created, shared, and experienced.
With a newly developed technical setup capable of accommodating up to 200 participants simultaneously, the competition signals a shift toward collective, rather than solitary, immersion.
At the centre of this evolution is Playing with Fire, a work that dissolves the traditional boundaries of the classical concert. Currently on view at the Philharmonie de Paris (Musée de la musique) through 4 May 2026, the project combines live recital, visual art, spatialised sound, and mixed reality into a single, fluid environment.
Rather than observing from a fixed seat, audiences are invited to move freely through the space, equipped with HTC VIVE Focus Vision headsets, encountering Wang’s performance from shifting perspectives.
What emerges is not simply documentation, but proximity, to gesture, to concentration, to the physical act of music-making itself. As Wang performs, her presence is extended and refracted through digital layers, allowing audiences to witness the energy and precision of her playing in ways that conventional staging cannot offer.
Produced by VIVE Arts and Atlas V, in collaboration with Lightroom, the project is further supported by the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC), Steinway & Sons, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, and Pictanovo.
The work is written and directed by Pierre-Alain Giraud, with original drawings by Gabriela Fridriksdottir.
As immersive media continues to expand, projects like Playing with Fire suggest a future where classical music is no longer confined to the concert hall, but reimagined as a shared, spatial, and deeply sensory experience. Its selection at Cannes not only recognises artistic innovation, but also points to a broader transformation in how audiences engage with performance in the digital age.
Watch the video here via YouTube.
Source: Festival de Cannes
