KissatenVienna.exe marks the Austrian premiere of Kissaten Vienna (喫茶店Vienna), the ongoing immersive game project by Rebecca Merlic. The artist’s fascination with kissaten, a unique Japanese coffeehouse culture inspired by traditional Viennese and Parisian cafés, dates back to her time as an exchange student at Tokyo Geidai.
During that period, she visited kissaten in search of comfort and familiarity, as they reminded her of her life in Europe. Her research process unfolded over two years, during which she traveled across Japan to build relationships with kissaten owners and their regular customers.
In her work, Merlic explores the fading traditions of coffeehouses in Vienna and kissaten in Japan as vital social spaces for personal encounters and creative exchange. Through interviews with café owners and regulars, she reveals the cultural significance and rituals embedded in these environments, while reflecting on their persistence in an increasingly digital world. Her project highlights the enduring value of human connection and the importance of pausing for meaningful interaction.
VIKOTRIJA, a previous work that critically examines video games and football in their different historical and social contexts, will also be integrated into the furnishing of Kissaten presented at discotec. This project was created in collaboration with Željko Beljan. Rebecca Merlic’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in personal experience, cultural observation, and long-term engagement with communities. While she explores themes such as belonging, spatial redefinition, and the intersection of physical and digital realities, she creates works that are both documentary and playfully experiential.
Exhibition: Rebecca Merlic – KissatenVienna.exe
Exhibition duration: 17.04. — 31.05.2026
Address and contact:
discotec
Schleifmühlgasse 12-14, 1040 Vienna
www.discotec.art
Rebecca Merlic – www.rebeccamerlic.com, www.instagram.com/rebi.me/
Rebecca Merlic *17/01/1989 in Oberwesel am Rhein, Germany (HR/AT/DE) is a European digital artist and architect, experimental filmmaker, and senior scientist at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Rebecca Merlic creates virtual, interactively experienceable spaces and situations—not merely as portals from the real to the digital world, but as gateways inclusive representation that can only be discovered in the fluid negotiability of virtual worlds. Rebecca’s artistic practice is not just digital but deeply rooted in her lived experience, including migration. She explores identity, political struggle, and the collective, while remaining dedicated to learning decolonizing and feminist practices. Rebecca’s work extends beyond art, driven by her deep understanding of intersectionality—the ways in which different layers of identity create different possibilities for alliances and collaboration. Rebecca also has a strong interest in creative writing and artistic research, blending her interdisciplinary approach to connect media art, architecture, urbanism, the anthropology of the new human image and game design. She is an exceptional artist, a true pioneer who encapsulates the plurality of our world, crafting new narratives for our time with all available tools. Through her work, she challenges boundaries and opens collaborative, intersectional spaces of thought and interaction, where political and personal identities intersect seamlessly.
She is the holder of the Marianne von Willemer Prize 2020 for digital media, DKB VR Art Prize winner 2023 as well as Content Vienna winner and the holder of Theodor-Körner prize for art and science 2023. Recently her work was shown at SLAMDANCE (Utah, US), New Cinema Days (Manchester, UK), Belvedere + Belvedere21 (Vienna, AT), ADAF (Athens, GR), ARS ELECTRONICA (Linz, AT), Austrian Cultural Forum (Tokyo, JP), V2 (Rotterdam, NL), Ethnographic Museum (Zagreb, HR), MSU Museum for contemporary art Zagreb.
