A cultural engineering exercise in which project management, technical production, and artistic direction were no longer separate stages, but inseparable parts of the same process.

At first glance, the title may appear ostentatious or even malicious. In reality, it is a factual statement. In 2025, the first immersive museum in Sibiu was created; on November 15, 2025, Immersive Museum Sibiu (IMS) was officially inaugurated.
The second statement — “the first truly immersive space in Romania” — requires several additional explanations, which I consider important and necessary.

What does “truly immersive” mean

The term immersive is currently used across a wide range of artistic contexts. It may refer to artistic spaces or installations in which the audience enters an environment created through digital imagery, sound, light, and other means that transform presence into an immersive experience. It may also refer to immersive performance spaces, where the audience is inside the artistic action rather than positioned in front of a stage (immersive theatre, site-specific performance, etc.). All these forms facilitate artistic expression and generate different forms of immersion.

In this article, however, I refer to a much more specific category: immersive spaces dedicated to audio-visual content.

In such spaces, the experience is constructed through panoramic projections on surrounding surfaces, complemented by floor projections and spatial (immersive) sound. Image and sound operate together to create visual and sonic narratives in which visitors are fully surrounded by content.

Immersive spaces can, of course, exist with projections limited to certain wall segments, without floor projection, or without immersive audio systems. All of these can produce engaging experiences. However, a truly immersive experience emerges only when these elements are cumulatively present: panoramic projections on all surrounding walls + floor projections + an immersive sound installation. This is what I refer to when I say truly immersive.

Until the opening of Immersive Museum Sibiu, no permanent space in Romania integrated all of these components simultaneously. In fact, IMS is the first space in Romania equipped with a permanent immersive sound installation. While immersive sound systems may occasionally be configured temporarily for specific events, we are speaking here about a permanent infrastructure, conceived and built as such.
In this sense, I hope I have clarified what I meant by the expression “the first truly immersive space in Romania”: it is not a marketing claim, but a matter of definition, infrastructure, and the typology of the experience offered.

Local context: digital visual arts — a gap in Sibiu’s cultural landscape

In a city the size of Sibiu, the emergence of a space dedicated to digital visual arts is almost a pleasant anomaly. Historically, Sibiu does not have a trajectory that would recommend it as a city oriented toward this specific field — whether in terms of cultural strategies, academic programs, specialized artistic communities, or recurring events dedicated to digital visual expression. Yes, Sibiu rightfully embraces its status as a cultural city; however, unlike Bucharest, Cluj, Timișoara, Brașov, or Oradea, it has not previously hosted an event or space dedicated to digital visual arts.
Immersive Museum Sibiu represents the first major attempt to fill this gap by creating a type of museum more commonly found in major metropolitan areas or cities with a solid tradition in this field, opening a new chapter in the local cultural offering.

From idea to project — an underutilized building in the city center

The starting point was the building on Nicolae Bălcescu Street, the former telephone exchange of the city. After various uses during the post-analog telephony era, the idea of transforming it into a space dedicated to digital visual arts came from the building’s owners.
In March 2025, I was brought in to analyze the idea of creating an immersive space and experiential installations within the digital visual arts domain. This marked the beginning of the process, and within seven months, the idea was transformed into a functional and sustainable project.

Artistic direction and curatorship — building meaning within a technological space

Transforming the building required not only technology, but also a coherent artistic and curatorial vision. This process — structured, strategic, and methodical — involved defining the museum’s identity, researching the national and international scene, establishing selection criteria (artistic relevance, diversity of media and languages, technical compatibility, balance between established and local artists), designing a floor-based visitor journey, and adapting each work to the architectural and technical constraints of the space.
The result is a unified exhibition path, articulated through rhythm, contrast, and a clear relationship between artworks, audience, and environment.

Exhibition structure:

• Ground floor: [in]visible – Daniel Popescu (a subtle introduction to the museum’s universe).
• Level 1 (300 sqm, immersive space): Foreign Nature (Julius Horsthuis), In This World (MAOTIK), Stories around the Christmas Tree (H3).
• Level 2: Daydream V.6 (NONOTAK), EGO (Klaus Obermaier), Daniel Popescu (Mirrored, Flow, Portal).

Project management and cultural production — between creativity and technical engineering

For me, creating Immersive Museum Sibiu was a complete experience — a cultural engineering exercise in which project management, technical production, and artistic direction were no longer separate stages, but inseparable components of a single process.
Due to contextual constraints, I assumed roles that would normally be distributed across multiple positions: strategic and operational management, artistic and curatorial direction, cultural and technical production management, site coordination, and operational design. From adapting the concept to the existing space and defining the technical architecture, to selecting equipment and ensuring the artistic coherence of the entire visitor journey, creative and operational thinking had to occur simultaneously.

The project was delivered fully functional within seven months — from the first meeting to public opening — through a constant balancing of creativity, spatial constraints, regulations, budget, and time.

Technical infrastructure as a cultural asset — where technology intersects with art

IMS was conceived as a permanent, future-proof platform, not as a one-off installation.
The immersive room measures approximately 27 meters in length, 12 meters in width, with a maximum ceiling height of 460 cm and 415 cm at the supporting beams.

Video infrastructure — case study

From the earliest assessments, it became clear that the ceiling height in the immersive space was not ideal. With the support of the spatial construction team and the H3 team, who implemented the video solution, we managed to achieve lateral screens and projections with a height of 410 cm.
In terms of volume, the IMS immersive space falls into the small-to-medium range when compared to major immersive venues in global metropolises (teamLab, L’Atelier des Lumières, ARTECHOUSE, etc.), and within the medium range among immersive spaces in Europe.

During the documentation and pre-production phase, I attended a seminar titled Optimization of technical set-ups for immersive spaces, led by Jean-Jacques Leprestre (Epson France), as part of the IMSIC – Image Beyond the Screen International Conference in Lille, France. There, the following luminance values for immersive spaces were discussed and noted:

• Minimum: 80 lux
• Optim: 100-125 lux
• Maximum: 125-150 lux

During the selection phase for the video solution, the objective was to achieve the smallest possible pixel pitch (approximately 3 mm), correlated with an optimal level of luminance on the projection surfaces. The calculations took into account the operation of the projectors in Eco mode (with luminous flux reduced to approximately 75%), as well as the fact that both walls and floor were painted gray, with an estimated reflectance of approximately 70% (gain ≈ 0.7). Consequently, luminance calculations considered cumulatively a reduction of approximately 25% at the source due to Eco mode operation and an additional loss of approximately 30% in usable luminance caused by the reflectance characteristics of the gray-painted surfaces.

This led to the following implemented video solution:

• 12 × Epson PU1007B (walls)
• 11 × Epson PU2010B (floor)
• Media server: 2 × RTX5080 (8 outputs), Datapath F4X, Resolume Arena (sync audio-video via Reaper)

Total resolution:

• Walls: 26.995.200 px
• Floor: 28.303.776 px
• Total: 55.298.976 pixeli

This cumulative resolution exceeds 55 million active pixels distributed across walls and floor, enabling very high visual density across the entire projection field.

Audio infrastructure — case study

In the design of Immersive Museum Sibiu, sound was not treated as a simple accompaniment to image, but as a fundamental infrastructure of the immersive experience. From the conceptual phase, it became clear that a space aiming to be truly immersive could not rely on a conventional surround system based on fixed channels and static low-frequency approaches.

After analyzing several immersive sound systems (e.g., L-Acoustics L-ISA, Meyer Sound Spacemap Go), d&b Soundscape was selected as the ideal immersive object-based moving sound platform, enabling precise positioning and real movement of sound within space, independent of speaker layout. In such a system, each sound is treated as an individual object with its own coordinates and trajectories, offering incomparable creative freedom and consistent spatial coherence for all audience positions.

A key criterion was permanence and future-proofing. The IMS audio installation is not a temporary configuration adapted to a single content type, but an infrastructure designed to accommodate both current and future immersive audio formats. The architecture is format-agnostic (not dependent on a specific audio format and not structurally tied to a single standard) and based on software evolution rather than hardware replacement, ensuring long-term technological relevance.

The main objectives of the audio infrastructure were:

• achieving true 360° spatial sound based on object-based processing rather than channel-based surround configurations;
• high spatial resolution capable of supporting continuously moving sound objects;
• uniform spatial coherence for all audience positions, without privileged listening zones;
• full integration of low frequencies into the spatial field, avoiding classical static LFE approaches;
• a permanent, stable, and reliable infrastructure suitable for daily museum operation;
• a future-proof system capable of accommodating current and future immersive audio formats.

To achieve these objectives, the audio system was designed with the following key characteristics:

• object-based spatial audio architecture, independent of fixed speaker formats;
• format-agnostic platform separating audio content from physical system layout;
• software-based spatial processing using d&b Soundscape (DS100 S, En-Scene for positioning, En-Space for simulated reverberation);
• precise localization and dynamic movement of sound objects in 3D space;
• independent control of multiple audio layers (music, effects, narration, ambience);
• seamless integration with large-scale immersive video projections;
• scalability for future expansion in both speaker count and content complexity;
• long-term operational reliability with minimal maintenance.

In a permanent cultural venue, these choices are not technical details but strategic decisions. They define what type of content can be hosted, the level of experience offered to audiences, and how relevant the space remains over time. At Immersive Museum Sibiu, immersive sound is not a spectacular add-on, but the invisible architecture that enables the experience.

The IMS audio solution consists of:

22 × d&b 8S — uniformly distributed around the immersive room perimeter, forming up to 22 independent surround zones for horizontal localization and sound movement tracking. Compact dimensions, wide dispersion, and high SPL enabled discreet architectural integration without compromising spatial precision.

4 × d&b B8-SUB — fully integrated into the object-based Soundscape workflow, allowing dynamic spatial movement of low frequencies, as opposed to classical static LFE approaches.

7 × d&b 5D amplifiers + fully redundant Dante network architecture, enabling real-time monitoring and control, efficient long-distance signal distribution, and stable daily operation with minimal maintenance.

d&b DS100 S + En-Scene & En-Space licenses — the spatial processing platform enabling real-time 3D positioning of all sound objects, complex movement trajectories within the listening volume, acoustic space modeling via En-Space, and precise synchronization with video playback systems.
Midas M32 Live mixer (Dante) — used for live signal capture, integration of external playback sources, Dante network interfacing, and backup operational control when required.

Acoustic integration within architecture

The immersive space required a dedicated acoustic treatment and optimization project, implemented to support the high spatial precision of the immersive room. The acoustic treatment ensures uniform spatial coherence for all audience positions, without privileged listening zones.

 

From the outset, Immersive Museum Sibiu was conceived as a future-proof immersive platform, capable of remaining compatible with any future evolution in immersive audio creation and implementation. Regardless of how spatial audio formats, workflows, or delivery technologies evolve, the IMS infrastructure is prepared to host and reproduce next-generation immersive audio content.

With d&b Soundscape as its core audio platform, Immersive Museum Sibiu becomes:

• the most advanced permanent immersive sound venue in Romania;
• fully compatible with international immersive content standards;
• a neutral production platform for visiting artists and studios;
• a long-term technological reference point for immersive culture in Romania.

Immersive Museum Sibiu as a model, not an exception

The realization of Immersive Museum Sibiu took place under significant time pressure, with an extremely tight schedule and multiple locational, technical, logistical, and operational challenges. Delivering a fully functional project within just seven months was not the result of circumstance, but of a coherent and sustained professional trajectory.

My specialized training, extensive experience in managing complex cultural projects, and over two decades of continuous involvement at the intersection of technology and art — particularly in digital visual arts — enabled an integrated understanding of the project beyond conceptual separations between creative, technical, and managerial domains. This trajectory was complemented by a systematic, phased, and solution-oriented approach, in which each decision was evaluated against both real spatial constraints and the project’s long-term objectives.

Direct involvement across all stages — from concept and artistic direction to technical production and operational management — ensured overall coherence and reduced the inherent risks of a project of this complexity. The result is a functional and coherent space, built not only to address an immediate need, but to remain relevant over time.

Immersive Museum Sibiu is not merely a new cultural venue, but a demonstration that a rigorous approach grounded in experience, methodology, and responsibility can generate internationally relevant cultural infrastructure, even within local contexts marked by limited resources and demanding timelines.
For me, what was achieved at IMS is proof that art, technology, and management can operate as a single, unified process.

This project could not have been delivered within such a short timeframe without the involvement, commitment, and support of many teams and individuals who contributed decisively to its realization — and to whom I extend my sincere thanks. They know who they are.