Icelandic artist Björk will DJ the world premiere of her new virtual reality project at Vivid Sydney in June. She joins musicians New Order and Bon Iver and film-maker Spike Jonze on the festival’s 2016 lineup, announced on Thursday.

More than 80 light installations and projections will be on display between 27 May and 18 June in sites across the city, including new festival site the Royal Botanic Garden, which marks its bicentenary with a 60-metre-long tunnel illuminated by tens of thousands of LED lights and called Cathedral of Light.

Taronga Zoo will make its festival debut, featuring giant light sculptures of 10 critical species, including the Asian elephant and Corroboree frog. The festival will have its first indoor precinct, The Galeries, and return to prior sites in Chatswood, Central Park, Darling Harbour and Martin Place.

The Sydney Opera House will be lit up with the artwork of six Indigenous Australian artists, in a work called Songlines. Head of Indigenous programming at Sydney Opera House, Rhoda Roberts of the Bundjalung people, said the artists will illustrate connections between Indigenous astronomy and the natural world.

A series of talks called Game Changers at Vivid Ideas will be headlined by director and producer Spike Jonze (Her, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich), along with the creators of two hit Netflix shows, Beau Willimon of politi-drama House of Cards and Jenji Kohan of prison comedy-drama Orange is the New Black.

Björk said she was “delighted” to premiere her virtual reality work in Sydney. “We have made seven 360-degree videos for Vulnicura and I am enthusiastic about this natural continuity of the music video: the intimacy, total merge of surround sound and vision makes VR an ideal home!”

The exhibition running at Carriageworks until 18 June features virtual reality pieces by the Icelandic musician in collaboration with Los Angeles film-maker Andrew Thomas Huang and UK film-maker Jesse Kanda, alongside a curated program of Björk’s music videos spanning her 24-year career.

Björk will be at the launch party of Björk Digital on 3 June. “Looking forward to celebrating it whilst DJ-ing with some good friends there!” she said.

Vivid LIVE, the festival’s music component, will present 12 performances, including by synth-pop quartet New Order and indie folk rockers Bon Iver. Composer Max Richter will perform his record-breaking 31-track, eight-hour album Sleep. Also performing are Perth producer Ta-ku, jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, future-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote and black-metal band Deafheaven.

Curator Ben Marshall said the Vivid LIVE program “celebrates ambition and excellence in contemporary music, marrying artists interested in stretching the concept of performance with a building [the Sydney Opera House] that symbolises the liberating power of art”.

Executive producer of Vivid Sydney, Sandra Chipchase, said in 2015 the festival attracted a record 1.7m attendees. This year will be the annual lights, music and ideas festival’s “biggest year yet”, stretching over 23 nights from 27 May to 18 June – the longest in its eight-year history.