Page 21. Immersive Story Worlds
Digital Storytelling as an Interactive Art Installation
The artistic research project Page 21 explores how artworks in the digital space can not only be displayed, but also narrated, experienced, and reconnected. Based on artworks from the collections of various museums, Page 21 offers visitors a completely new form of interaction with art. The focus is not on a faithful reproduction, but on the development of a digital, narrative, and multi-sensory art journey. The digital space becomes a place of artistic interpretation and social reflection, a laboratory where the boundaries between viewing, participation, and co-creation blur. Thus, analog artworks become starting points for new stories that evolve through movement, sound, and interaction. The resulting story worlds are presented in the Immersive Space at Dortmunder U. Currently, eight story worlds can be experienced there. For the two newest works, “Farewell” and “Two Hands,” the Page 21 team collaborates with two contemporary authors. Both story worlds are still in development and will be publicly presented as a Work in Progress for the first time at the Next Level Festival 2026.
Immersive Story World “Farewell” (WiP)
Three artworks enter into a dialogical relationship with each other in the story world “Farewell.” Jay T. John responds to the themes of grief and loss explored in Henri Laurens’ bronze “L’Adieu” (1941) with the poem “Farewell” (2025) from a postcolonial perspective, offering a poetic reflection on memory, belonging, and the continuation of stories. This lyrical exploration is continued in K.O. Götz’s Informal Painting “Nova III” (1984), ultimately unfolding an interplay between form, materiality, and emotions.
Immersive Story World “Two Hands” (WiP)
“Two Hands” is an interactive story world about self-perception, identity, and transformation, stemming from Arne Siegfried’s watercolor “Untitled (Reading Woman)” (n.d.), whose androgynous figure becomes a mutable protagonist. The figure is complemented by the expressive counter-figure from Max Beckmann’s painting “Self-Portrait with Cigarette” (1947), while Andreas Achenbach’s landscape painting “Trollhättan Falls” (1835) ultimately conveys the emotional movement of the story. In the screenplay (2025) written by author Maria Babusch, visitors either follow or resist the voice of the omniscient narrator, influencing the course of the story through their decisions, where self-discovery and external determination confront each other.
The Page 21 project is a collaboration between StoryLab kiU, Dortmunder U, Museum Ostwall, and the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Dortmund. Together, they are developing models for contemporary, research-based storytelling that makes art newly experienceable in the digital age. Since 2020, the project has been supported
by the Neue Künste Ruhr program of the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as by the City of Dortmund.
Harald Opel – Artistic Director
Anna Rumeld – Project Management
Lennart Miketta – Digital Storytelling
Max Walter – Sound Design, Director
Jan Schulten – Creative Coder
Lennart Oberscheidt – Creative Coder
David Wesemann – VFX Artist, Director
Timo Sodenkamp – VFX Artist
Elisabeth Drache – VFX Artist
Marc Kemper – VFX Artist
Aldina Okerić – Art Education
Maria Babusch – Author of “Zwei Hände”
Jay T. John – Author of “Farewell”