Since December 2024, the SONA team has been guests at the Laboratory for Inclusive Culture (L.I.K.) in Cologne. The artists in residence 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 premiered at the Sommerblut Kulturfestival 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.
Now you have the opportunity to experience SONA for yourself: book your slot quickly and experience the installation for yourself on 1 November 2025!
About SONA
SONA is an auditory virtual reality installation – conceived from the perspective of blind people.
As visitors, we enter a completely darkened 10 x 10 meter room with no visual orientation. We experience the virtual reality exclusively through headphones. A motion capture system tracks our position in the space and the rotation of our head. Sensor-equipped shoes record our steps. We hear our footsteps on virtual surfaces – through snow, in the forest, across sand, and on a responsive sound carpet. We move through an acoustic labyrinth. Virtual walls reveal themselves through their reflections. Will-o’-the-wisps call out to us and guide our way. We learn to see virtual reality with our ears.
In developing this auditory VR format, we benefit from close collaboration with and the expertise of people with visual impairments. They contribute their perspectives, ideas, and experiences, test the VR installation, and play an active role in its development. Together, we ask: How can we navigate and interact when we rely not on our visual sense, but solely on spatial audio?
The SONA virtual reality installation holds the potential to develop spatial, audible narrative strategies that offer new aesthetic experiences for people both with and without disabilities.
Showing
SONA is a Virtual Reality game.
It takes place in complete darkness.
To participate, you move through a dark room equipped with headphones, a microphone, and motion sensors.
No traditional audio description is provided.
The game is experienced through sound and spoken language, making it accessible for blind and visually impaired people. The language used in the game is German.
Guide dogs are warmly welcome, but cannot be taken into the installation.
During the installation, there will be people available to take care of your dog.
Wheelchair users and people with hearing impairments are also warmly welcome.
However, the installation cannot be experienced in its entirety – it will be an experiment we embark on together.
On November 1, a special installation will take place at the Un-Label Studio.
Between 5:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., visitors can experience the installation individually.
Book your personal time slot now to be part of it – you’ll find the registration link below.
artists
Adriani Botez
Adriani Botez born in Romania, Adriani Botez has lived in Germany since the age of sixteen. After completing his degree in business administration, he now works as an analyst at DEG within the KfW banking group. As a blind person, Adriani is actively involved in numerous socio-cultural initiatives to foster connection within society and promote inclusive collaboration. Among other projects, he helped develop the strategy for Match my Maker, conducted HACKademies, and contributes to the ongoing development of the open-source screen reader software NVDA. Within SONA, he serves as an expert and advisor on accessibility formats, supports public outreach within visually impaired communities, and is part of the conceptual team.
Jakob Lorenz
Jakob Lorenz works as a composer and sound designer for theater performances, radio plays, and VR projects. Until 2018, he studied Electronic Composition at the University of Music and Dance Cologne leaded by Professor Michael Beil and Brigitta Muntendorf. His engagements and collaborations have taken him to, among others, FFT Düsseldorf, Tanzhaus NRW, Theater Münster, Theater Dortmund, Theater Rampe Stuttgart, LOFFT Theater Leipzig, and the Favoriten Festival Dortmund. In 2022, Jakob held a five-month residency with the artist collective Team LEN! at the Academy for Theater and Digitality at Theater Dortmund. The resulting interactive virtual reality work was presented in 2023, among other venues, at the Kooperationslabor of the Dortmunder U.
Thomas Meckel
Thomas Meckel works as a media artist, cultural manager, and musician in Cologne. He organizes cybernetic jam sessions and creates cinematic games for collective improvisation. His performance Solaris has been presented at 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 Philharmonie. Thomas Meckel studied Media Arts at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Cultural Studies in Lüneburg, and Applied Theater 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.
