Ulm Stories. Tales of a City

This cross-media journey draws on Ulm’s rich history, the architectural and cultural heritage of its cathedral, and the city’s forward-looking spirit, transforming them into immersive experiences. At the heart of the project was the question of how Ulm’s past, present, and future can be retold and made tangible for a wide audience. The result was a series of formats that connect the city’s historical themes with innovative media ranging from sound art and virtual reality to live performance in Ulm Minster.

Ulm Stories. Tales of a City grew out of the idea not just to tell the city’s rich history, but to make it directly tangible through artistic means and digital technologies. Its foundation lay in historical sources and local narratives, newly interpreted in close collaboration with artists, musicians, and developers.

Methodologically, the project combines cultural-historical research with immersive media technology: virtual reality, binaural 3D sound, projections, and live performance interweave to make Ulm’s past and future accessible in unexpected ways. The audience is not only invited to consume media, but to step into the city’s history itself – as a walkable, audible, and interactive space.

The project unfolds across three formats, making the city’s past, present, and future tangible in different ways – live, virtual, and auditory.

Ulm Stories was realized in collaboration with a broad network of creatives, musicians, and developers. Among those involved were the agency demodern, MIIQO Studios, wittmann/zeitblom & Liebert, and artists such as Dorian Roy and Tom Kombüchen. Together they developed the artistic concepts, the technological implementation, and the immersive sound and visual design.

The impact was immediate: the live performance Resonances in Ulm Minster alone attracted more than 2,700 visitors and was received in the media as an innovative example of urban and cultural engagement. By combining virtual reality, sound art, and architectural staging, Ulm Stories demonstrated far beyond Ulm how history can be retold through artistic and technological approaches.

Ulm Stories highlighted what cultural engagement can look like in the digital age: participatory, immersive, and intergenerational. The project revitalized engagement with local history and showed that historical themes can not only be preserved but also reimagined in contemporary forms. Its resonance in the city community was strong and reached far beyond Ulm. Visitors, media, and partner organizations experienced how digital technologies and artistic strategies can work together to make history tangible and emotionally accessible. In doing so, Ulm Stories became an example of how past, present, and future can be woven into shared cultural experiences.

The project demonstrated that digital media are not just tools but autonomous artistic forms capable of bringing history to life. In this way, the project stands as an example of our commitment to designing formats that create social relevance, touch people emotionally, and spark impulses for future ways of learning and experiencing.