Current
19 April 2026
SONA @ c/o pop Festival, Köln
At the c/o pop Festival you can try out the first prototype of our diving game in the dark: with headphones, you dive into a virtual underwater world and navigate through the flooded Rhineland. One session takes approximately 15 minutes. We look forward to seeing you!
12 May 2026
SONA @ International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Hamburg
The ICMC is one of the most renowned gatherings in the international computer music scene. We are giving a public workshop on how VR can be designed using spatial audio without any visual information, with insights into our artistic and technical work. Afterwards you can try the first prototype of Diving in the Dark yourself.
2026
13 February 2026
Interview with Thomas Meckel at Unframed Collection — in English and French
In December 2025, SONA was a guest at the NUMIX Lab, a European network convention for immersive culture, in Budapest. Read the interview with Thomas about Audio-VR and SONA's work here.
→ Read the interview
6 February 2026
Talk at the "Access to Theatre" Conference, Münster
Adriani Botez and Dennis Scheiba presented SONA at an academic conference on digital transformation in theatre at the University of Münster.
→ To the conference
2025
15 –16 November 2025
SONA – Seeing Sound @ Next Level Festival, Dortmund
Next Level Festival is one of Germany's most important festivals for games, interactive art and digital theatre. We showed Seeing Sound at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality.
5 – 6 November 2025
Nomination for the Next Reality Award, Hamburg
SONA was nominated for the Hamburg Next Reality Award 2025 in the "Zeitgeist" category. We presented the prototype of Diving in the Dark at the Digital Reality Research and Transfer Centre, located in Hamburg’s Hafencity.
1 November 2025
Seeing Sound at Un-Label Studio, Cologne
Public performance of Seeing Sound at the Un-Label Studio for Inclusive Culture in Cologne Ehrenfeld, as part of our research residency
25 Oktober 2025
First public presentation of the diving game prototype
At the Un-Label Studio we presented our research progress on Perspectives on non-visual VR publicly for the first time.
13 Oktober – 4 November 2025
Research residency at the Un-Label Studio, Cologne
Four weeks of intensive development work on Diving in the Dark at the Un-Label Studio in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, together with blind co-creators
3 – 5 Oktober 2025
SONA @ Hack The Promise Festival, Basel
The Hack The Promise Festival understands hacking as a socio-technical practice — a perfect context for SONA. Adriani Botez, Thomas Meckel and Moritz Wesp gave a talk on virtual reality from the perspective of blind people. The first prototype of Diving in the Dark was also tested by the audience.
Oktober 2025
SONA in the Behind the Screens Podcast by Medienwerk NRW
Music journalist Sophie Emilie Beha speaks with Adriani Botez and Thomas Meckel about SONA — about adventures in total darkness, sonic spaces instead of visual worlds, and what non-visual perception means for the development of Audio-VR. The podcast is part of the Behind the Screens – Behind the Scenes series by Medienwerk NRW.
8 September 2025
Documentary film about Seeing Sound released
The documentary by Nikolai Meierjohann about the making of SONA – Seeing Sound at the Sommerblut Kulturfestival is complete and now available in German and English.
21 August 2025
Talk at the Gamescom Congress, Cologne
Adriani Botez and Thomas Meckel spoke at the congress of the world's largest games trade fair about SONA and the future of acoustic virtual reality — and celebrated the premiere of our documentary film.
1 Mai 2025
SONA in the Spatial Realities Podcast
Thomas Riedl visited SONA – Seeing Sound at the Sommerblut Kulturfestival and reports on his experience in the Spatial Realities podcast. SONA starts at minute 9:40.
1–10 Mai 2025
World premiere of SONA – Seeing Sound at the Sommerblut Kulturfestival, Cologne
For ten days we showed Seeing Sound at TanzFaktur Cologne, accompanied live by 19 blind and visually impaired Co-Creators as performers
29 April 2025
Radio piece on SONA by Raphael Netolitzky
Raphael Netolitzky — member of the Cologne Association for the Blind and Co-Creator of SONA — produced a radio piece on the making of Seeing Sound, featuring many voices from the process.
2024
30 August – 1 September 2024
Premiere of SONA – Explorations in Sonic VR, Cologne
As part of the AVENGERS Symposium for greater accessibility in the performing arts, we showed our first Audio-VR installation at Barnes Crossing in Cologne.