SONA - Seeing Sound

SONA – Seeing Sound is a performative virtual reality installation, designed with and from the perspective of blind people. Using headphones, a microphone, motion tracking, and sensory shoes, players of the installation embark on adventures built from interactive 3D sound, navigating through spaces of 8 × 10 m in complete darkness. They hear their footsteps on virtual terrain, use voice commands to control the game, and orient themselves through virtual echolocation. In early 2025, a full adventure game was created, developed together with 19 blind and visually impaired game designers. They created the stories, sounds, characters, and voices of the experience, and during the presentations they become performers, interacting with the visitors of the VR game and guiding them through the virtual world. For 30 minutes, players sneak into a mysterious shopping mall to support a group of children in sustaining a dadaistic revolution. Players hypnotise evil plants with their “Echobeam,” kick flowerpots to free fellow revolutionaries, and solve riddles of talking products in a supermarket that potentially become ingredients for a rooftop cocktail. Throughout the journey, the player talks to her guide-performer via walkie-talkie. Finally, guide and player meet in a magical freezer, where they try to short-circuit the mall by choreographing a cybernetic ritual. SONA – Seeing Sound premiered at the Sommerblut Festival in Cologne in 2025 and was subsequently presented at the Next Level – Festival for Games. The team was invited to talk about the project at numerous conferences and festivals throughout Europe, such as Gamescom in Cologne, Hack the Promise in Basel, Numix Lab in Budapest, and Digitale W/Enden at Dortmunder U.