Hybrid Opera is an interdisciplinary artistic project developed within the international CAPHE programme and presented during the XR Festival Liquid Spaces in Florence. My contribution focused on the artistic concept, design and development of the main character's costume across both physical and digital environments, including the creation of her avatar for the immersive virtual opera.

The costume design process combined artistic research, speculative design and digital craftsmanship. Beginning with conceptual development, the project evolved through a series of collaborative design workshops that explored multiple visual and material directions before arriving at the final costume concept. I was responsible for the digital modelling, virtual garment construction, physical fabrication and the development of the performative avatar, ensuring continuity between the character's physical presence and her virtual embodiment.

The project investigates how costume can function as a bridge between physical and virtual realities, contributing to new forms of performative presence where bodies, avatars and immersive environments become interconnected within a hybrid operatic experience.

PROJECT FRAMEWORK

Year:
2024

Status:
Completed

Media:
Performance · Immersive Installation · Virtual Environment · Digital Scenography · AI-generated Costumes

Research Themes:
Embodiment
Immersion
Digital Environments
Transformation

RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

Research Questions:
How can costume extend embodiment across physical and virtual environments?
How can digital and physical garments function as a continuous performative form?
How does avatar design reshape the relationship between body, identity and performance?

RELATED RESEARCH THEMES

Embodiment

The costume as an extension of bodily presence across physical and virtual realities.

Material Translation

Design translated between digital modelling and physical fabrication.

Digital Environments

Avatar creation and virtual embodiment as components of performative space.

Speculative Design

Costume as a medium for imagining hybrid forms of identity and performance.

DESIGN FOCUS

Costume Design

↓

Digital Garment

↓

Physical Garment

↓

Avatar Design

↓

Material Translation


CONCEPT

Hybrid Opera investigates how contemporary performance can exist across multiple realities without privileging either the physical or the virtual. Instead of treating digital technologies as tools for simulation, the project understands hybrid environments as performative spaces where new forms of embodiment and interaction emerge.

Developed within an international collaboration between artists, musicians, designers and technologists, the project combines live performance, AI-generated costume design, motion capture, immersive scenography and virtual architecture. Each element contributes to a shared performative ecosystem in which human presence is continuously redefined through technological mediation.

Rather than replacing the live body, digital environments amplify its capacity to inhabit multiple spaces simultaneously. The project proposes hybridity not as a technological effect but as a new condition of artistic experience.