After studying industrial design, he conducted audio experiments using pipe organs, harmoniums and multiple tape machine environments, as well as engaging mainly in drawing. In 1984, he left East Germany for West Germany, where he started to develop the basics of his language in painting, photography and electronic music.
In 1988, he moved to Vienna pursuing his activities in his studio in the WUK (Werkstätten und Kulturhaus), which resulted to an exhibition and the publication of a catalogue of his artworks.

In 1991, in Vienna, he co-founded with Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger the duo GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS. In more than a decade, they created monumental multimedia installations and performances, such as AREAL (1997-2004), FELD (2000), MODELL 5 (1994-2007), NOISEGATE (1998) or the latest POL (1998-2008). They exhibited and performed at the Museum for applied Arts ICA London, Hull Time based Art, MAK Vienna, Museums of Contemporary Arts of Lyons, Montreal and Seoul, The Stedelijk Museum, Kunstverein Hanover, ISEA Montreal and Liverpool, ICC Tokyo, Creative Time New York and the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial 2001.

GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS received an Austrian state stipendium, the first prize of the International Biennial in Nagoya (1995) and a PS1 stipendium for a residence at PS1, New York (1999). The work is published on a number of DVDs including REMIX/INDEX (Arge Index / Medienwekstatt Wien & sixpack films) and IMMERSIVE WORKS (ZKM / Cantz).

Since 2002, Ulf Langheinrich has been producing a new series of large scale solo projects, among others PERM (2005), WAVEFORM (2005-), HEMISPHERE (2006-2016) and LOST (2017), both designed for a hemispheric screen, or LAND, a stereoscopic installation commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2008.

He exhibited among others, in Barcelona (MACBA 2011, SONAR 2018), Berlin (Martin-Gropius-Bau 2007-2008), Brussels (Halles de Schaerbeek 2016), Dresden (Hellerau EZK 2010, 2012 and 2016), Eindhoven (STRP Festival 2009), Gent (Film Festival 2008), Hong Kong (opening of Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre 2011, opening of ISEA Hong Kong 2016), Madrid (ARCO 2006), Melbourne (ACMI 2005), Montreal (Elektra Festival 2007, SAT 2012-2013 and 2018), Moscow (Red October 2011, Winzavod 2013), Perth (PICA 2007), Rome (Romaeuropa Festival: Palladium 2006, MACRO Testaccio - La Pelanda 2010, Palazzo delle Esposizioni 2017-2018), Rotterdam (DEAF 2004), San Francisco (Recombinant Festival 2016 and 2018), Seoul (Incheon Digital Arts Festival 2010) Shanghai (Zendai MoMA 2006, Shanghai Sculpture Space 2007, Science and Technology Museum 2008, Chronus Art Center 2014, Power Station of Art 2017, Ming Contemporary Art Museum 2018), Taipei (Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2013), Vienna (Wien Modern 2006 and Künstlerhaus 2010), Washington (Hirshhorn Museum and Air and Space Museum 2017).

His longstanding interest in combining classical music with electronic music and HD images led him to compose the score of SINKEN in 1998 (with GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS) for symphonic orchestra and electronic in Dangerous Visions, commissioned and performed by Orchestre National de Lille and New Music French group Art Zoyd. Since this first live experiment, other similar creations followed, including MINUS (still with GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS, 2002) and later, under his own name, SYNTONY for the Festival d'Art Lyrique of Aix-en-Provence (2005), DRIFT LIVE (2006) again for Wien Modern and KU for TONLAGEN Festival for contemporary music in Dresden in 2010.
Recently, he composed two new audiovisual compositions for Orchestra and 3D images, RE-TIME and SINKEN II.

He also worked in collaboration with various artists, in the series of performances and installations MOVEMENT A (2008), MOVEMENT B (for the opening of the Hong Kong City University School of Creative Media in 2011), MOVEMENT X and MOVEMENT Y (2010) with Japanese dancer Toshiko Oiwa and MOVEMENT C (2012), MOVEMENT Z (2014) and FULL ZERO (2016) with Chinese dancer Luo Yuebing.
Japanese dancer Akemi Takeya (featured in GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS' MODELL 5) invited him to design the audiovisual environment of her two performances CE_1 and Weathering in 2005-2006.
He also worked on the music and sound design of the performance "N" for French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj in 2004 and co-directed the short film SPINTEX with British artist Gina Czarnecki in Ghana in 2008.
In 2015, he created the images and collaborated to the lighting design of the opera SOLARIS by Dai Fujikura and Saburo Teshigawara, after Stanislas Lem's novel, presented at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lille Opera and Lausanne Opera.

In 2017, he was commissioned to create GHOST, the third animated work for the 3D Water Matrix (2014), premiered in the exhibition "Body Media II" at Power Station of Art in Shanghai.

In 2018, he was commissioned by Lumiere London to project OSC-L on the complete wall of the fly tower of the National Theatre.

The DVD Visionaries 21: The Aesthetic of Sensory, featuring his solo works between 2002-2010 was published in 2013.
As composer, he released the CD DEGREES OF AMNESIA (Asphodel Records, 1998) and the vinyl album Vol1 (DS-X.org, 2012).

Over the last years, besides his artistic activities, Ulf Langheinrich has been appointed to teach in the most prestigious high schools in Europe (HGB University for Graphics and Book Design, Leipzig, FH Salzburg and Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing), as well as in Australia (RMIT in Melbourne) and China (Hong Kong City University School of Creative Media and China University of Art in Hangzhou).
He is involved in the education project Sup de Sub, conceived by the LFKs collective and its director Jean Michel Bruyère, whose first campus opened in Marseilles in September 2019 and in Seine Saint Devis in January 2020.

From 2016 to 2020, he was also Artistic Director of CynetArt Festival, Dresden.