Dávid Somló: Choreography of Sound, Art of Restraint

The Budapest-based maker of sound installations, who studied interdisciplinary composition at Goldsmiths College in London, practices modest art in another sense too – in his approach to audiences. He doesn’t impose himself but outlines performative conditions, so audiences can take the lead in owning their aesthetic experience. Stepping into the role of experiencer from the paradoxical stance of not-understanding – that, he argues, is the true act of audience emancipation. Yet, the most radical form of emancipated participation might be contemplation itself, as he explores at the KoresponDance Festival in Žďár nad Sázavou. Towards the end of our conversation, Dávid reveals his understanding of transdisciplinarity and, most compellingly, presents how invisible sound can create cracks in our perception of reality – spaces where uncertainty settles for aesthetic experience begins…

From confusion to research

When you begin with your new project, what is the starting point? Maybe it’s psychedelic inspiration from mushrooms, maybe it’s sound, space, movement… For many artists, it might be an idea, some problem…

For me, there are several variations. One is an experience I’ve had that I want to make an abstraction from… I really love that moment when something strange happens and I don’t know what it is. Like when you’re walking through a city, and suddenly you turn a corner and something is just… there –⁠ something unfamiliar. And at the same time, you hear a sound that’s completely unrelated, but you can’t quite tell. Like my large-scale public space piece Drift – originally created for the Prague Quadrennial 2019 – creates this slight confusion that pulls you out of your usual, comfortable “going around” mode. 

Another is imagining an experience I’d like to have, but can’t access. So I create it, like in Mandala. I’d done participatory works before – with performers carrying speakers, for example – but then I came across Passing Through by David Zambrano, a dance training  where people moved through each other for a long time. 

And a third one is when I make a piece and there’s a seed in it where I think, “Ah, this is really cool – I’d like to explore this part further.” And then it kind of flows from one piece into another.

Can you give me examples? 

I did a sound installation in a flat with nineteen hidden speakers where people entered a quiet, dreamy soundscape. Then I expanded it into a public version, Slow Steps Have Ears, hiding twenty-five speakers in parks. It created this experience where you’re not sure what’s real. 

Delicate Balancing of Twigs follows that path, but more loosely – I just started balancing twigs after a psychedelic experience, seeing where it would take me. Here, I’m researching by letting things grow. That’s why it feels special – I couldn’t invent something like that. It just has to happen.

But at the same time, you do academic research. You’ve written a PhD dissertation, so you’re able to reflect on and analyse your work. What new artistic knowledge came out of it? What did you learn, formulate or test?

I’m actually planning to do post-doctoral research, so I’ll continue. On the other hand, I tend to get associative quite easily – I think that’s probably my biggest artistic skill… Soon I realised my work is not really interdisciplinary, but transdisciplinary, merging disciplines into something inseparable: it’s composing with space that creates an experience of spatiality, where the audience is central. 

Though many artists do this, I couldn’t find any educational material on it – How do you create experiences with spatiality in performance? I realised that this was something worth researching: methods for composing with spatiality as an artistic attribute. Like music, film editing, painting or choreography – each has its own compositional logic. But for spatial experience, there’s no clear methodology.

Over six years, I kept developing work and breaking it down into different approaches – a loop of practice, reflection and making. So, to answer your question: I became more aware of how these spatial aspects function.

High-stakes participation

Can you tell me more about how the spatial aspects function in relation to audiences?

In many so-called participatory pieces – or even just ones where artists want to blur the line between audience and performers – they say, “You can be anywhere you want.” You walk in, the performance starts, and you’re told you can stand wherever. But if the piece still has a focal point, the audience tends to drift to the sides. No one wants to stand in the centre and feel like an exhibitionist. So even with freedom, the old structure remains.

This only really works if the space is decentralised – no clear front or centre. If action happens everywhere, the hierarchy disappears. People genuinely can be anywhere. And that first spatial choice is a kind of low-threshold participation. Maybe you wouldn’t take part otherwise, but if I say, “You can stand wherever,” you probably will. And from there, you can go further – because you don’t feel watched. Everyone’s just somewhere. That’s how spatial composition can help open up the experience for the audience.

And you’ve tested many other ways of engaging spectators… 

Yes, since I tour, each context requires slight adjustments, which naturally creates variation. I don’t like to start from scratch each time. It’s a way to see what works, how it works, and to discover the finer details.

Are there forms of spectator participation you tend to avoid – ones that aren’t truly horizontal or feel too hierarchical? There can still be implicit power dynamics – as you’ve already described. 

Many times centrality isn’t implied for a bad reason – perhaps it happens accidentally, or simply isn’t fully conscious… But one form of participation I find less compelling is when it carries no real stakes. You go along with it, but it doesn’t really impact your experience or the piece itself. It feels very low-stakes.

How do you make it challenging – but transparently so? Otherwise, it risks feeling manipulative, or…

It’s not about being challenging, but about whether it matters what you do. Some pieces move you out of the traditional audience role, but you’re still being dragged around or expected to play along – you remain in the background, not fully immersed.

In my work, participation specifically means entering a very specific state – intense, contemplative, playful. The key is the stake – that you’re genuinely part of the experience. Not just present, but that it’s your experience. I think some participatory works fail because the creators haven’t fully thought through the experience. You feel it immediately – you’re asked to do something, but it’s too fast, too vague, or just not quite possible. Then it loses the “here and now”.

Contemplation as radical participation

When you’re truly contemplating, you’re alone with your experience. The performer somewhat disappears… 

And there are many ways to reach a contemplative state. For me, participatory piece doesn’t automatically mean giving people total freedom to do whatever they want. In her piece 223m, a Dutch collective of associated artists of SOAP placed a small white dot on the spectators’ shoulders and let them walk in a set tempo behind each other, staring at that tiny dot. The route went through the city streets of Maastricht. It’s very strict: what you do, how you move. But within that constraint, you experience something very precise – using your peripheral vision, sharing this collective rhythm, this repetition. So the freedom is minimal, but the experience is deep.

In Mandala, I say, “Here’s a speaker, here’s a route – go.” You can do anything: stand still, play with others, run, dance, listen to your own sound. So there’s more openness. But both approaches can lead to that same contemplative space.

You just walk with the speaker – but it’s an open framework for your creativity, what you bring into it. People sometimes say the audience is “co-creating” the piece. I don’t really like that wording. For me, it’s always a designed experience. Within that frame, you’re not creating – you’re making it come alive. But it’s still authored. 

Indeed, I remember in mindfulness or meditation –⁠ the experience feels very much mine. Something new that I author. It doesn’t really matter who designed it. And there is also a feeling of empowerment. When I experience something beautiful, I feel empowered. 

That feeling of presence is so strong, right? It makes the moment feel like yours – like something you truly own. That’s something what Jaques Rancière might mean with the emancipation of the spectator – the idea that the spectator owns the experience, that they’re not just passive.

I still sense a gap – artists are promoted, interviewed… and spectators are kept at a distance. I don’t quite get this “equality of intelligences” he talks about. We still tend to look up to artists as if they have something to teach us.

I think it’s more about being active. In a traditional performance, the setup is: I come to you with information, and you don’t need to do anything – just sit back and enjoy. But in truly participatory works, you have to go for the experience. You have to engage, to put yourself into it. You have to make an effort. If it’s a good piece, it won’t feel like effort – but you still have to be actively present, even if only through attention.

In a traditional performance, you can drift in and out. But here, if you zoom out, you’re out. It’s gone. So we have to do it together. I won’t do it for you. You have to do it. That’s what emancipation means to me – taking responsibility for your own presence. But I try to make that as easy as possible.

No Art Without Emancipation

Isn’t it paradoxical – if spectators respond to “you have to”, they’re not truly emancipated. The initiation comes from a position of superiority.

Emancipation is not about knowledge or teaching – it’s about activity. A piece needn’t avoid hierarchy altogether. I see no problem in asking you to do something you don’t fully understand. Emancipation, in this sense, means stepping into the role. It only exists if you go along with it.

You have to do it. You have to engage. You have to direct your attention, you have to allow yourself to experience what I offer. Otherwise, the piece doesn’t come into being. It exists only through your active experience.

I see now, that’s profound – the performativity of emancipation. Emancipation isn’t something given to me by a performer. It’s something I perform myself, as a spectator. And it’s through this act that I emancipate myself and co-constitute the artwork. 

It’s actually simple. Take Mandala, for instance. There are only participants. I offer a few basic rules: everyone gets a speaker and a designated path in the performance hall. I ask them to follow the path for half an hour, however they like – but without talking. That’s it.

If everyone just sits down and waits for something to happen, sure, the music plays, but it’s dull. If they behave like a passive theatre audience, the piece doesn’t appear. They have to decide: “Okay, this is the piece. I’ll start walking, see what happens, try to make something of it.” And then maybe: “I’ll go faster” or “I’ve met someone – now this is the game.” And they play, without needing to speak or plan. That’s when the piece emerges. Without that engagement, it’s just a twenty-speaker sound installation. It’s not participatory. And that’s the crucial point of participation – or emancipation.

So, what would the piece be without the bodies of the people? Just the sound?

Without the participants – without the bodies – it would still be something. Just being among twenty speakers in a resonant space can be beautiful. But this piece is meant to resonate through connection. That’s where its transdisciplinary nature comes in – it can’t be separated. It’s not a standalone sound work. It’s designed to connect people as they move, to create this textured, shared interaction. If I were to make a twenty-speaker sound piece, it would be something entirely different.

Disrupting the real with sound

Talking about sound you frequently work with, what is it for you? A relationship, an environment, a bodily event? What sonic qualities draw you most? 

Spatiality of sound adds a new, compelling layer to listening. It’s very different to hear “spatial sound” – not just stereo from a stage or headphones – but sound you perceive as physically present around you. It connects more closely to how we experience sound in reality, and that opens up a performative layer.

One thing about sound is that recognition is often unclear – you don’t always know what you’re hearing. That opens up the imagination. You start inventing little scenes in your head, recalling memories, different for everyone. Evolutionarily, sound triggers high sensitivity – you need to know if it’s danger, food, or a crying baby. So it activates you.

Foucault had this term, heterotopia – overlapping realities. I think sound can do that. You’re in a forest, but I play city or lake sounds, and you experience both at once. That layering is powerful.

Or invisibility of sound – especially when you can’t locate its source. If you don’t see the speaker, you can’t tell whether the sound is real or composed. It creates a crack in perception. You can’t achieve that with visuals. Even the best projection still looks like a screen. But with sound – even low-quality – you can’t be sure.

What’s the role of the body in your “sound choreography”? 

Sound choreography means when movement emerges within sound. Sometimes I fix the speakers and move the sound through them – so you hear a specific sound travelling through space like a choreography. You are really listening to the spatiality or the spatial movement.

In other cases, I ask people to carry speakers. Then it’s not just sound moving – they’re carrying the sound. Symbolically, it’s like we’re all vibrations, and by carrying a vibrating sound, you make your own vibration audible. You become sound. So just walking becomes a choreography of moving vibrations.

Can you suggest any tools or approaches for dancers – ways to engage differently with music? Or for choreographers working with sound? 

I’d say: listen to the smallest changes. Deep listening often starts with quiet sounds. When a sound is quiet, your attention has to go towards it – it doesn’t come to you. That shift creates depth. For dancers, especially those with somatic training, that’s a natural entry point. They’re already tuned into translating subtle stimuli into bodily sensations and connections. That’s where it can begin.

I’ve heard of a Sufi practice where, in a noisy place, you focus on one distant conversation – like at a cocktail party, ten metres away. It’s not about sound reaching you, but where you place your attention. You’re in a sphere of potential listening, and you choose a direction. You go there with your attention.

But If you’re in front of a stage speaker and the music is loud, it just floods you. You don’t have to go to it – it comes to you.

Well, sound can also be violent. You can’t look away, can’t close your ears. It’s used for torture. It occupies public space – in protests, political rallies… Do you touch on this in your work? 

What interests me most is how hard it is to be at peace with other people’s sounds. It’s a major source of frustration – the impulse to shut others out.

At home, you don’t want to hear other people’s lives spilling into yours. There’s a kind of mindfulness in accepting that. Sounds connect us – they enter your life whether you want them to or not. Accepting that is, in a way, a practice of presence.

Some sounds are more intrusive, but often it’s our irritation that makes them feel violent. In everyday language, we call annoying sounds “noise“. For sound artists, “noise” is more technical. 

We often say we live in a visual culture. Do you think our relationship to sound is shifting? Spoken word, radio – they’re still going strong. Podcasts, ASMR… On the other hand, Instagram reels often have subtitles – assuming people won’t turn on the sound. 

One direction is definitely escapism. Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones are now so effective and comfortable that people use sound to hide, to isolate, to block out the world. That wasn’t possible before – or not to this degree.

The gramophone was still part of the room, the space. Speakers too – not like headsets.

Exactly. And I’m not sure if it’s good or bad. It’s a form of control over sound, but it also distances us from it. Take meditative or ambient sounds – they’re now used to sleep, to focus, to calm. They become a kind of soothing background. But deep listening? I’m not sure how many people practise that. Maybe people are more aware of sound now because it’s more accessible – but whether that’s good or bad, I really don’t know.

Scrolling screens all the time, being mentally elsewhere, that’s just bad. But with sound – using it as background or a way to control your environment – it’s more complex. I don’t know if it leads to deeper listening. Still, there are more sound artists and sound-based artworks now. I think sound has become more important.

I have a last question, a bit provocative. Would you rather be blind, deaf or immobile? Which sense matters most to you?

I’d never want to be immobile, that’s for sure. Also, you can’t really be deaf anymore – prosthetics are so advanced. Though some deaf people choose not to hear; they see themselves as a cultural minority. But that’s not really answering your question…

My sense is, even if you unfortunately became deaf, you’d still find ways to involve it in your artistic practice. And I wish you all the best with whatever ways your practice takes.

Dávid Somló is a performance maker and sound artist based in Budapest, focusing on spatial-relational practices. 

Dávid Somló’s work has appeared around the world – e.g. in the programme of Prague Quadriennale (CZ), Festival d’Avignon (FR), Passage Festival (DK), FiraTárrega (ES), D-CAF (EG), Festival XS Bruxelles (BE), 4+4 Days in Motion Festival (CZ), FIME Sao Paolo (BR), Istanbul Fringe (TR), Sonorities (NIR), Mais Imaginarius (PT), Montag Modus (DE), UH Festival (HU), Placcc Festival (HU).

He is an associate artist of public space performance network IN SITU and Placcc Festival. In 2024–2025 he is a participant of the Green Streets of Europe residency series.