Since December 2024, the SONA team has been guests at the Laboratory for Inclusive Culture (L.I.K.) in Cologne. The resident artists are working in an inclusive team on the auditory virtual reality installation SONA – Explorations in Sonic VR. This is being developed from the perspective of blind people and uses spatial audio to make VR accessible without visual stimuli. Step by step, the team of blind and sighted people is exploring new worlds of sound and forms of navigation beyond sight.
SONA will premiere at the Sommerblut Culture Festival 2025 – a co-production with the Cologne Association for the Blind, Sommerblut, the Laboratory for Inclusive Culture (L.I.K) of Un-Label and SONA.
about SONA
SONA is an auditory virtual reality installation designed from the perspective of blind people. As visitors, we enter a completely darkened room measuring 10 x 10 metres, in which there is no visual orientation. We experience virtual reality exclusively through headphones. A motion capture system records our position in the room and the rotation of our heads. Sensory shoes detect our steps. We hear our footsteps on virtual surfaces – through snow, in the forest, over sand and on a reactive sound carpet. We walk through an acoustic labyrinth. Virtual walls reveal themselves through their virtual reflections. Will-o’-the-wisps call out to us and show us the way. We learn to see virtual reality with our ears.
In developing the auditory VR format, we benefit from the close collaboration and expertise of people with visual impairments. People who contribute their perspectives, ideas and experiences, who test the VR installation and actively participate in its development. Together we ask: How can we navigate and interact when we cannot rely on our visual sense, but only on spatial audio?
The virtual reality installation SONA has the potential to develop spatial, audible narrative strategies that offer new aesthetic experiences for people with and without disabilities.
presentation
The SONA system will premiere for the first time with a VR performance at the Sommerblut Culture Festival 2025. This is made possible by a co-production between the Cologne Association for the Blind, the Sommerblut Culture Festival, the Laboratory for Inclusive Culture (L.I.K) of Un-Label and SONA. More information to follow.
Artists
Adriani Botez
Adriani Botez, born in Romania, has lived in Germany since the age of 16. After completing his studies in business administration, he now works as an analyst at DEG in the KfW banking group. As a blind person, Adriani is involved in many socio-cultural initiatives to seek contact with society and contribute to inclusive coexistence. Among other things, he designed the strategy for the Match my Maker project, ran HACKademies and is also involved in the further development of the open source reading software NVDA. At SONA, he acts as an expert and consultant for accessibility formats, in public relations for the visually impaired communities and is part of the design team.
Jakob Lorenz
Jakob Lorenz works as a composer and sound designer on theatre performances, radio plays and VR projects. Until 2018, he studied electronic composition at the Cologne University of Music and Dance with Professor Michael Beil and Brigitta Muntendorf. His engagements and collaborations have taken him to the FFT Düsseldorf, Tanzhaus NRW, Theater Münster, Theater Dortmund, Theater Rampe Stuttgart, LOFFT Theater Leipzig, and Favoriten Festival Dortmund, among others. In 2022, Jakob resided with the artist collective Team LEN! for five months at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality at Theater Dortmund. The resulting interactive virtual reality work was shown/heard in 2023 at the Dortmunder U cooperation laboratory, among other venues.
Thomas Meckel
Thomas Meckel works as a media artist, cultural manager and musician in Cologne. He organises cybernetic jam sessions and builds cinematic games for collective improvisations. His performance ‘Solaris’ has been staged at the Museum Ludwig (Cologne), the Universidad Nacional (Bogotá) and the Ringlokschuppen (Mülheim/Ruhr). Together with Tobias Thomas, he curates the concert series ‘Round’ at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall. Thomas Meckel studied media arts at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, cultural studies in Lüneburg and applied theatre studies in Giessen.
Josephine Stamer
Josephine Stamer explores technical, sonic and choreographic elements in various formats and collective constellations. She studied applied theatre studies in Giessen. She is currently completing a master’s degree in Sound and Reality at the Institute for Music and Media in Düsseldorf, specialising in epistemic media, where she conducts research into performative sound techniques.
Together with the choir ΓΛΩΣΣΑ (Glossa), she performs with the instrument of voice, develops choreographic and technical scores, and received the Karl Sczuka Research Scholarship in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut as co-composer. In the band EZB with Thomas Meckel, she sings and plays various instruments in the genres of experimental, pop, children’s music and Krauthouse. As js bach, she uses her collection of mobile phone recordings for sound diary compositions in the programming language PureData.
Moritz Wesp
Moritz Wesp works as a composer, musician and media artist. Central to his work is the development of his own electronic instruments, such as his virtual trombone, and the creation of interactive settings for collaborative improvisation. He is co-leader of the ensemble NOW MY LIFE IS SWEET LIKE CINNAMON and a member of ensembles such as Matthias Muches Bonecrusher and Mariá Portugal Erosao.
Moritz studied trombone and composition at the Lucerne School of Music and the Cologne University of Music and Dance, where he completed his master’s degree in 2018.
About the Un-Label Artist Residency
Un-Label’s artist residencies offer artists with disabilities the opportunity to realise their own creative projects with targeted support. The Laboratory for Inclusive Culture (L.I.K.) in Cologne-Neuehrenfeld is creating a central location where artists with disabilities can come together, network and work in an inclusive environment. In addition to financial, personnel and logistical support, there is a focus on interdisciplinary and intersectional collaboration. Un-Label also works with network partners to anchor accessibility and the promotion of artists with disabilities in the cultural scene in a sustainable manner.
