Dávid Somló is a performance maker and sound artist based in Budapest. His artistic practice focuses on spatiality and interactions.
Using simple elements, structures and instructions, he creates immersive sound compositions and choreographies that allow participating audience members to examine their everyday movements and interactions regardless of age or prior experience. With a primary tool-kit consisting of several dozen portable speakers, he has a unique flexibility in composing spatial sound, creating highly adaptable and interactive sound environments.
He often works in site-specific and public space context. His performances, installations and interventions have appeared in a wide range of locations, including foot-tunnels, underground stations, public squares, forests, a Turkish bath, an abandoned office, an abandoned factory, a mining museum, a synagogue garden, an ancient monument, and private flats.
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His 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 (GER) / 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.
SELECTED PRESS
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Dávid Somló holds an Mmus in Creative Composition from Goldsmiths College, London and an MA in Sociology from ELTE, Budapest and finished his Phd-in-practice research at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. The dissertation: ‘Transdisciplinary Approaches of Spatiality in Performance’
He has been holding workshops internationally and he is one of the lead teacher of the Performance Studies course at the FreeSZFE, teaching site-specific practices, interdisciplinary composition and the performativity of sound.
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I used to play guitar in a Congolese Soukus band in a Cameroonian restaurant, in Deptford. Usually there was a man there called Honore Haliman, who made videos of African concerts in London. One night, he came up to me during a cigarette brake and said:
“I’ve seen your videos on Facebook – the “Space Between Us”, and that one in the tunnel. You’re crazy. I don’t understand.”He thought a bit.
“Ok. I understand. You try to make people pay attention to things that they usually don’t.”