Rebecca Merlic: Games as reality engines

The Culture & Technology podcast 028 | June 13, 2025

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Rebecca Merlic: Games as reality engines

Severin is joined by Rebecca to discuss her project Kissaten Vienna, a documentation of vanishing coffee house cultures across Vienna, Japan, and Zagreb using 3D scanning and game engines. Together, they explore how emerging technologies can document and reimagine traditional social spaces while raising questions about accessibility and preservation.

Rebecca Merlic is a European digital artist and architect, experimental filmmaker, and senior scientist at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She 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.

In this episode, Severin is joined by Rebecca to discuss her project Kissaten Vienna, a documentation of vanishing coffee house cultures across Vienna, Japan, and Zagreb using 3D scanning and game engines. Together, they explore how emerging technologies can document and reimagine traditional social spaces while raising questions about accessibility and preservation.

GUESTS

Rebecca Merlic is a European digital artist and architect, experimental filmmaker, and senior scientist at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 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.

HOST

Severin Matusek is a cultural theorist and founder of co—matter, a creative studio exploring the cultural and societal impact of new technologies.

IDEAS AND PEOPLE IN CONTEXT

The great Vienna Coffee House-Experiment. Phase II Tour with the expert Gregor Eichinger https://www.viennadesignweek.at/en/archive/2011/the-great-vienna-coffee-house-experiment-phase-ii/
Cafe Prückel https://www.prueckel.at/
Susanne Widl
https://cafekorb.at/susanne-widl/
Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell https://www.legacyrussell.com/GLITCHFEMINISM
Glitch Bodies, a multiplatform project that consists of a visual novel Game, a VR-Game Experience, an animation movie, and a performance piece. https://calls.ars.electronica.art/2023/prix/winners/7379/

CREDITS

The Vienna Business Agency supports new companies, projects and products that develop Vienna's creative industries further. Find out more at viennabusinessagency.at

Editorial & Production Team (in alphabetical order): Carina Dala, Mike Evans, Nick Houde, Kesia Inkersole, Severin Matusek, Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Alice Smith, Heinz Wolf

Theme Music by Hell Mutang.

S5E5 is now out and available wherever you listen to podcasts.