Ekklesia Elektronika is an immersive, site-responsive experiment at the intersection of electronic music, architecture, and light. It asks a simple but profound question: what kinds of physical spaces do we need for collective listening, presence, and awe in a post-religious world?
Electronic music — one of the most expansive creative languages of our time — has evolved far beyond the environments that once held it. From warehouses and clubs to concert halls and festivals, its emotional and acoustic potential has grown. But its spaces haven’t.
Ekklesia Elektronika is a prototype for a different kind of environment: one that isn't about performance or spectacle, but about deep attention. A space without screens, without a stage, without a performer. Just sound, light, and shared presence.
From the Deep – The First Iteration
The first iteration of Ekklesia Elektronika, titled From the Deep, was a two-hour-long multisensory journey held in an active Protestant church. Created in collaboration with the church’s pastor and community, it combined immersive electronic soundscapes, spatial light design, and live organ elements.
Instead of removing the liturgical frame entirely, the experience incorporated a minimal, stylized version of the Protestant service — offering visitors a gentle narrative arc within an otherwise open and unfamiliar space. There was no sermon, no performance, no spectacle — only sound, space, light and shared attention.
The aim was not to replicate religion, but to explore how architecture, rhythm, and sensory design can evoke presence, reverence, and collective depth — even (and especially) without belief.
From the Deep was conceived and realized by an interdisciplinary core team: architect, designer and DJ David Gössler, UX designer Steffen Weichert, and local Protestant pastor René Enzenauer, in collaboration with Ben Schönenstein. Together, they brought architecture, liturgy, music, and experience design into a shared conversation — laying the foundation for what Ekklesia Elektronika could become.
In doing so, From the Deep also served as a prototype for how existing sacred spaces can host cultural experiences that are just as enriching — and potentially just as spiritually significant — as traditional services.
Ultimately, Ekklesia Elektronika seeks to create new spaces for deep, immersive encounters with the full emotional and perceptual range of electronic music. Spaces where listeners are guided not outward toward spectacle, but inward — to be moved, centered, and attuned.
A Cultural Seed
Ekklesia Elektronika is not a finished concept, but a starting point. A seed. As part of Studio Schönenstein, it invites interdisciplinary collaboration to explore the future of meaningful space: architects, musicians, scenographers, engineers, philosophers — anyone working at the frontier of perception, culture, and form.
The long-term vision is to develop entirely new typologies of space — sonic sanctuaries, perceptual chapels, immersive environments — that reconnect us with what matters most. Spaces not for belief, but for resonance.
Learn More
The project’s evolving documentation and event archive can be found at ekklesiaelektronika.com.
If you're interested in collaborating, supporting, or hosting an installation, please get in touch.