Traversing the Mist - Chou Tung-Yen

ESPRONCEDA Institute of Art & Culture proudly presents the Spanish premiere of Traversing the Mist, the acclaimed immersive XR experience by Taiwanese artist and director Chou Tung-Yen, produced by Very Theatre and Very Mainstream Studio (Taiwan).

The exhibition opens on October 30, 2025, at 19:00 h at ESPRONCEDA (Barcelona), inaugurating the international program Tres freqüències — A Month of Immersive Art, Sound & Vision, presented within the framework of NUBIA LAB INCUBACIÓN IA MÓNS 2025.

Additionally, on 29 October, there was a Meet the Artist session with Chou Tung-Yen. Chou’s work, which blends theatre, film, and immersive technologies, has been presented internationally and recognized with honors including the Grand Prize at NewImages Festival (Paris) and the World Stage Design Award for Interactive and New Media.

During this special session, Chou shared insights from his creative journey across performance, cinema, and extended reality, exploring the delicate intersections where technology, memory, and human emotion converge.

A poetic odyssey through perception, identity, and transformation

Traversing the Mist is a 6DoF multi-user XR installation that invites participants to explore a surreal gay sauna — a dreamlike labyrinth of vapor, memory, and emotion.
Audiences embody the same figure: a young Taiwanese man navigating corridors that dissolve into mist, confronting reflections of desire and fear in a constantly shifting environment.
Blending live performance, 3D animation, and immersive interaction, the piece expands Chou’s internationally celebrated Trilogy of Mist (In the Mist, Gazing, in the Mist, and Traversing the Mist), transforming intimate experience into shared virtual space.

Described by Variety as “a dreamlike odyssey awash in fear and flesh,” and hailed at NewImages Festival for its “visceral and embodied exploration of connection and identity,” Traversing the Mist has been presented at Venice Immersive, Kaohsiung Film Festival, and IDFA DocLab — and now premieres in Spain for the first time at ESPRONCEDA.

About the Artist — Chou Tung-Yen

Chou Tung-Yen (Taiwan) is an award-winning theatre director, filmmaker, and scenographer whose work fuses live performance, digital technology, and poetic narrative.
Founder of Very Theatre and Very Mainstream Studio, Chou explores the intersection of human emotion, technology, and queer identity through immersive storytelling and new media forms.

His Trilogy of Mist (2021–2023) — comprising In the Mist (Venice Film Festival 2021), Gazing, in the Mist (2022), and Traversing the Mist (2023) — reimagines intimacy in virtual space, blurring the boundaries between theatre and digital art.
Chou’s works have been showcased worldwide, including at Venice Immersive, Kaohsiung Film Festival, NewImages Festival, and IDFA DocLab.
www.vmstudio.tw | Instagram: @vmstudiotw