Portfolio Works
INSTALLATIONS
INSTALLATIONS
An immersive interactive installation using bioelectrical sensors to capture plant bio-signals and transform them into real-time sound and visuals, connecting humans and nature.
Vibrotanica is an immersive interactive audiovisual installation exploring the symbiotic relationship between humans and plants. Bioelectrical sensors capture micro-electrical variations in plants and transform them into real-time sounds and visuals — every interaction with a plant triggers a unique audiovisual response. The work raises awareness about biodiversity, fosters empathy towards nature, and invites reflection on our connection to the environment.
INSTALLATIONS
A lumino-kinetic sound installation premiered at the Lighthouse Art 2020 exhibition, Csokonai Theatre, Debrecen.
IRIS is a lumino-kinetic sound installation created in collaboration with visual artists Zalán Adorján and András Nagy. Laser beams strike a mirrored sphere moving vertically through artificial fog, dispersing light into chromatic spectra that evoke the iris of the eye and the rainbow goddess of Greek mythology. The piece has a definite beginning and end — rare for installations — giving it a performative, durational quality that the sound score was built around. Premiered at Lighthouse Art 2020, Csokonai Theatre, Debrecen, under its original title Reflectio.
INSTALLATIONS
Interactive/Live Sound Installation. A sonic exploration of action and intervention.
An interactive audio spatial installation exploring contemporary Hungarian society. The artist describes it as "a performative sound installation, an interactive experiment willing to present the space and the system we are in." Visitors navigate a multichannel soundscape and observe how their sounds and movements affect the living space, raising philosophical questions about individual agency and collective responsibility.
INSTALLATIONS
A multichannel spatial audio installation merging 16 speakers with live circus performance in Nicosia's Municipal Gardens.
For this project, the artist created an immersive outdoor spatial audio installation featuring 16 speakers positioned throughout the Municipal Gardens. During a residency period in Nicosia, J3ZZ developed a unique sound vocabulary by recording and capturing sounds produced exclusively by the human body. The 16-speaker installation, processed through Ableton Live, became the sonic backdrop for a groundbreaking performance merging circus arts and sound art. Trapeze artist Audrey Louwet from Compagnie Azeïn performed with her dog Eran, creating a visceral dialogue between aerial movement, sound, and the urban landscape at the edge of Nicosia's UN buffer zone.
LIVE ACTS
LIVE ACTS
Immersive live audiovisual performance where sensors capture plant bio-signals and transform them into sounds and visuals in real time. Workshops and performances combining biosonification, music, and ecology across Hungary, Réunion, and Mauritius.
Racines & Résonances is an immersive artistic project by J3ZZ exploring the intersection of botany, sound art, and music. Using specialized sensors, the project captures plant bio-signals and transforms them into melodies, soundscapes, and generative visuals — creating a multisensory experience that stages the symbiotic relationship between plants and humans.
LIVE ACTS
Live act collaboration with Modeo, performing as violinist in two Budapest shows in 2015 — opening for Ben Frost and Vessel at Trafó, and at the Nagyvásártelep outdoor festival alongside Lone and Mo Kolours.
J3ZZ collaborated with Modeo (with Tankó Erika, visuals by Bios) as violinist for two live performances in Budapest in 2015, employing spatial processing and heavy distortion on the violin to embrace an industrial aesthetic and dystopian vibe.
The first was at Trafó House of Contemporary Arts on April 18, 2015, as the opening act for Ben Frost (IS/AU) with *Aurora* and Vessel (UK) with *Punish Honey*, as part of Trafó's ELECTRIFY contemporary electronic music series. The second was at the Nagyvásártelep open-air festival on June 12, 2015, as Modeo + J3ZZ, sharing the bill with Lone (UK), Mo Kolours (UK), Volkova Sisters and others.
LIVE ACTS
MASSOLIT SERIES was a cycle of seven live improvisation encounters founded by J3ZZ at Massolit Books & Café, Budapest (2015). Two musicians who had never played together met on stage with no preparation, improvised while a Polaroid photograph developed before their eyes, then opened the floor for dialogue with the audience.
MASSOLIT SERIES was a concert series founded and hosted by J3ZZ at Massolit Books & Café — a cozy English-language literary bookstore and café in Budapest's Jewish Quarter. Over seven sessions from February to August 2015, J3ZZ invited musicians from Budapest's contemporary improvised and experimental scene for unplanned, one-off performances. Each session was recorded live and the complete recordings were released as a digital album on September 10, 2015.
The series featured Áron Porteleki (Series 01, 03), Ernő Zoltán Rubik (Series 02), Endre Kertész (Series 04), Bálint Bolcsó (Series 05), Zsolt Sőrés / Ahad (Series 06), and a solo performance by J3ZZ (Series 07).
LIVE ACTS
Solo violin improvisation show — nude and contemporary acoustic violin, performed live without preparation. Two recordings released on Bandcamp.
Sur le fil is a solo live act by J3ZZ — free improvisation on acoustic violin, performed alone with no preparation and no electronics. The title ("on the wire") reflects the tightrope quality of real-time solo improvisation.
The show was performed five times between 2013 and 2017, in Florence, Budapest, and Singapore. Two performances were recorded and released on Bandcamp: the premiere at Frau Frisor, Florence (September 12, 2013, 25:42) and the FKSE Studio Gallery, Budapest (July 2, 2015, 15:09).
LIVE ACTS
A cross-cultural musical collaboration with the acclaimed Tuareg ensemble TADALAT during Festival au Désert/presenze d'Africa in Florence.
A pivotal cross-cultural live performance and jam session with TADALAT, a Tuareg ensemble that emerged as a revelation at the 2012 Festival au Désert in Timbuktu. This collaboration represents a profound engagement with folk and world music traditions—particularly the desert blues and Tamashek musical heritage of the Sahara—bringing together Tuareg and Malian musicians with European artists. The ensemble bridges centuries of nomadic musical traditions with contemporary improvisation, exploring themes of cultural exchange, oral storytelling, and musical synthesis. Part of the AZALAI – Laboratoire Nomade initiative (EU Culture Programme), this work embodies J3ZZ's artistic practice of learning from and improvising within living folk traditions, grounded in his deep cultural affinity with African music through his Réunion Island heritage.
LIVE ACTS
J3ZZ performed as violinist with Samba Touré & AZALAI at Sziget Festival's World Village stage — a cross-cultural encounter uniting West African desert blues with European improvisation.
On 11 August 2012, J3ZZ performed as violinist alongside Samba Touré & AZALAI (MALI) at Sziget Festival's World Village / Afro-Latin Stage in Budapest — a 90-minute concert bringing together desert blues guitar, ngoni, calebasse, tindé, and violin in a spontaneous cross-cultural jam.
Samba Touré is a guitarist and singer from Timbuktu, Mali, heir to the griot tradition and one of the defining voices of the Malian desert blues lineage. Performing under the AZALAI banner — the cross-cultural initiative that also underpinned the Festival au Désert/presenze d'Africa editions in Florence — this encounter brought together Malian and European musicians in the spirit of open improvisation and genuine cultural exchange. For J3ZZ, it represents a direct continuation of the collaboration begun at the 2011 Festival au Désert with TARTIT, and forms part of the broader AZALAI – Laboratoire Nomade network (EU Culture Programme).
LIVE ACTS
EU-funded interdisciplinary performing arts project bringing together young music, media and dance artists from four European countries for improvisation-based performances combining visuals, music and movement.
**Talking heArts** — "Art speaks one language" — was an EU-funded (Youth in Action) interdisciplinary performing arts initiative running from February 1 to November 30, 2012. As artistic director and violinist, J3ZZ led a pan-European ensemble of 17+ young music, media, and dance artists from Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Spain.
The project's core challenge was to strongly interconnect visuals with performing activities — bringing together dancers, musicians, and media artists into a shared improvisation language. Participants developed interaction codes through hand signs, sensors with programming, defined spatial zones on stage, and techniques inspired by jazz improvisation. The resulting shows combined visuals, music, and movement into one-hour improvisation-based performances.
The project consisted of three residency phases across Europe, each culminating in a public performance: Florence (Fabbrica Europa Festival, May 2012), Budapest (Sziget Festival A38 stage, August 2012), and Bucharest (Godot Café, October 2012). A pre-show was also organized at Toldi Club, Budapest in July 2012. The network also connected with the annual Hipnotik Festival and Apolo Barcelona partnership.
Lead coordinator: Subjective Values Foundation (Budapest). Partners: Associazione culturale Fabbrica Europa (Florence), EuroEst Foundation (Bucharest), University of Barcelona–LMI (Spain).
LIVE ACTS
An innovative EU-funded cultural exchange initiative operating as an itinerant laboratory for creative experimentation connecting African and European artists across a 2013 European tour.
AZALAI – Laboratoire Nomade was an EU Culture Programme-funded itinerant collective (2012–2013) coordinated by Fabbrica Europa (Florence) as a nomadic cultural laboratory bringing together 40+ musicians from Africa, the African diaspora, and Europe. The project's name references the ancient Tuareg salt caravan route across the Sahara — a metaphor for the exchange of culture and music across geographic and cultural boundaries. Operating through residencies, workshops, jam sessions, and performances at European festivals, AZALAI functioned as an open ensemble with rotating casts of musicians at each stop. The project carried particular political significance: it coincided with the 2012–2013 Mali conflict that forced the closure of the original Festival au Désert in Timbuktu, making AZALAI's European performances a way of honoring and continuing that spirit of cross-cultural dialogue.
LIVE ACTS
A sophisticated experimental project exploring live improvisation with acoustic strings and electronics, blending disruption with harmony, and contemporary experimental aesthetics with acoustic classical roots.
HYBRIS is an experimental improvisation project co-founded by J3ZZ, exploring the intersection of classical/folk musicianship and live electronic experimentation. The project examines how musicians trained in specific genres approach improvisation while incorporating electronic effects, experimental noise, and dystopian aesthetics alongside acoustic classical traditions. Operating across 2011–2017, HYBRIS brought together J3ZZ (violin with effects), Endre Kertesz (cello), computer programming musicians from Hungary and Europe, and a visual artist from Belgium, creating a sophisticated dialogue between disruption and harmony, between tradition and experimentation.
LIVE ACTS
A cross-cultural collaboration spanning two performances at Festival au Désert/presenze d'Africa: J3ZZ performed with TARTIT (Tuareg all-female vocal ensemble) on July 21, then with combined KOUDEDE & TARTIT ensemble on July 23, bridging the musical traditions of Mali and Niger with European improvisation.
The July 2011 Festival au Désert/presenze d'Africa (2nd edition) in Florence brought together two distinct yet complementary Tuareg and Saharan musical voices. Across two nights, J3ZZ performed as violinist first with TARTIT, the acclaimed all-female vocal ensemble rooted in centuries of Tamashek ritual and social traditions, then alongside KOUDEDE, a musician and ensemble from Niger whose practice bridges traditional tendé and imzad with contemporary desert blues and electric guitar influences.
KOUDEDE emerged from the post-1996 Touareg liberation period, representing the new generation of desert musicians who synthesize ancestral tindé drum traditions with electric instruments—a lineage descended from the legendary "Jimi Hendrix of the sands." Performing with both TARTIT and KOUDEDE across consecutive nights allowed J3ZZ to engage with complementary dimensions of Saharan musicianship: the preservation of all-female vocal traditions (TARTIT) and the evolution of electric desert blues (KOUDEDE). Together, these performances embodied the Festival au Désert philosophy of cross-cultural dialogue—authentic encounter rather than exoticization, with the violin becoming a genuine conversation partner to the tendé, imzad, and desert guitar.
LIVE ACTS
J3ZZ performed as violin soloist in Summer Suite — a live work-show for 25 young dancers and musicians at the Anfiteatro delle Cascine, Florence, directed by composer Alessandro Nisticò as part of Estate Fiorentina 2011.
Summer Suite was the culminating work-show of a two-week Summer School (25 June–9 July 2011) exploring interdisciplinary creation between dance and music. Presented at the Anfiteatro delle Cascine within the frame of Estate Fiorentina 2011 by |O|R|A| (Organizzazione Risorse per le Arti) and Associazione Fabbrica Europa, the performance brought together 25 young dancers and musicians from the Florentine territory in an expressive melting pot spanning jazz, hip hop, modern dance, and pop — structured around the form of the musical suite and an original score by Alessandro Nisticò.
J3ZZ performed as violin soloist alongside the young ensemble, with more experienced musicians and peer coaches from the European network Roots&Routes, which simultaneously ran Summer Schools in Greece, Spain, and Hungary. The project was part of Roots&Routes Follow-up, an action-research initiative addressing non-formal and informal learning in artistic contexts, coordinated by the University of Barcelona and supported by the EU Lifelong Learning programme.
LIVE ACTS
A large-scale EU CULTURE 2007–2013 initiative — approximately 250 young artists from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Serbia co-creating a multidisciplinary performance that evolved continuously across residencies and a 9-country European tour (July 2011 – June 2013).
**EUtropia** was a large-scale collaborative performance developed under the EU CULTURE 2007–2013 programme, coordinated by jfc Medienzentrum e.V. (Germany) within the ROOTS & ROUTES International Network. Running from July 2011 to June 2013, the project brought together approximately 250 young artists from nine European countries — Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Serbia — to co-create a shared multidisciplinary artistic language.
Conceptually rooted in the Tower of Babel myth, EUtropia explored humanity's self-destructive tendencies and the search for a unified expressive language across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Rather than a fixed work, EUtropia was designed to evolve continuously: each national residency reimagined the performance through local artistic traditions and contemporary influences, blending rock, pop, classical, traditional, hip-hop, and ethnic aesthetics with visual and dramatic arts.
The Florence iteration at Fabbrica Europa Festival (May 4, 2012) exemplified this approach, focusing on visual languages: sophisticated lighting design, pre-photographic cultural imagery (paintings, engravings, prints), combined with digital soundscapes where music interwove with authentic recorded sounds. Nineteen artists from eight countries performed at Stazione Leopolda. The project concluded with the final performance in Utrecht (April 14, 2013), hosted by Stichting ROOTS & ROUTES.
J3ZZ served as violinist, composer, producer, and performer throughout the project, contributed to the documentary soundtrack, and coached young artists during the Lille residency.
LIVE ACTS
One of seven flagship productions in the Art'n'Go initiative — a live interdisciplinary show co-created with emerging artists from 11 European countries, blending violin, composition, contemporary dance, spoken word, and visual arts. Developed through residencies in Germany and performed across major European festivals in 2010–2011.
**Reality in Disguise** is one of seven independent artistic productions created under **Art'n'Go – New Routes to Intercultural Creativity**, a landmark ROOTS & ROUTES umbrella initiative supported by the EU CULTURE Programme (September 2009 – August 2011).
**The Art'n'Go Project Structure:** Art'n'Go commissioned original proposals from young artists who had previously collaborated through ROOTS & ROUTES initiatives. These artists became authors, directors, and managers of their own independent productions, which were then collectively showcased across major European festivals between May and August 2011. The seven productions (About Traffic, Braincheck, Coloured Life, Ether Sides, My World, Reality in Disguise, Traces) represented a coordinated strategy to promote intercultural creativity and cultural dialogue between Eastern and Western Europe.
**J3ZZ's Role:** J3ZZ participated as violinist, composer, and co-creator, contributing to a show described as "a shockingly unique mixture of art genres from contemporary dance to pop music, from dub step to slam poetry, from the art of storytelling to visual arts." The work was developed during intensive residencies at Akademie der Kulturellen Bildung in Remscheid and the artistic development space in Heek (Germany), and performed at three major European festivals: Roots&Routes Cologne (August 2010, premiere), Fabbrica Europa Festival in Florence (May 2011), and Sziget Festival in Budapest (August 2011).
FILMS
FILMS
Soundtrack composition and production for Flóra Chilton's award-winning short film exploring child trafficking and human exploitation. The film emerged from a Self-Awareness Film Workshop addressing vulnerabilities of youth in crisis.
**VÁLASZÚTON / CROSSROADS** is a short film directed by Flóra Chilton that transforms a dangerous real-world scenario into cinema with unflinching honesty. The narrative follows a young man returning from prison, sent by his hustler stepfather to the countryside with one task: lure a vulnerable girl from a foster home into exploitation.
FILMS
Georgia State University's inaugural student feature film. A sassy romantic comedy about an American photographer and a Hungarian art professor discovering that "off the grid" means something different to each of them.
**PETRA** is the Georgia State University School of Film, Media & Theatre's first student feature film — a 75-minute romantic comedy directed by Professor Philip Lewis and shot entirely by GSU film students on location in Budapest and rural Hungary.
The narrative follows Jeff Kovacs, a National Geographic photographer assigned to document refugees in Budapest. When he arrives, he discovers that life in post-communist Hungary is nothing like he imagined. His only contact in the city is Petra Farkas, a young, unconventional art professor who takes him under her wing for an impromptu cultural immersion course.
As the two explore the Hungarian countryside together, an unexpected connection forms. They discover a shared fascination with living off the grid — but they have two very different visions of what that means. The film explores themes of cultural clash, mutual discovery, and the ways that apparent opposites can find unexpected resonance in each other.
**Production Achievement:** In just five weeks, a team of eleven film students shot the entire feature across nearly 50 locations in Budapest and surrounding villages, completing what would typically be a professional multi-month production. The project represents a remarkable educational achievement and a testament to the creative capacity of emerging filmmakers.
FILMS
A contemporary cinematic interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen's timeless parable "The Fir-Tree." Director Amalie Halsey reimagines the tale's themes of ambition, longing, and the bittersweet nature of dreams fulfilled.
**GRANTRAEET** is a modern adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale "The Fir-Tree" (*Grantræet* in Danish), a poignant parable about desire and mortality that has resonated across centuries. Director Amalie Halsey brings the 19th-century narrative into contemporary visual language, asking what the fir tree's yearning means in our current moment.
Andersen's original story follows a fir tree in the forest who dreams of becoming a grand Christmas tree, yearning for adventure, elegance, and purpose. The parable explores themes universal to the human experience: ambition, the fear of insignificance, and the realization that the life we imagine for ourselves may diverge radically from the life we actually live.
Halsey's film adaptation translates these philosophical concerns into cinematic form, using the tree's journey as a mirror to contemporary desires — the pressure to achieve, to matter, to leave a mark. The work invites viewers to reflect on their own stories of longing, fulfillment, and the complex relationship between expectation and reality.
FILMS
A dance-based film exploring PhD research on how humans evaluate creativity. J3ZZ composed an original score translating research into movement and sound.
**BUILDING UP CREATIVITY** is a film-based visualization of PhD research conducted by Judit Pétervári at Queen Mary University of London, supervised by Magda Osman and Joydeep Bhattacharya. The research investigates a deceptively simple question: How do people judge whether an idea is creative?
**The Research:** The study reveals that both laypeople and experts evaluate creativity according to four core criteria: usefulness, originality, riskiness, and growth potential. But here's the crucial difference: laypeople apply these criteria somewhat messily, with noise and approximation. Yet their judgments are surprisingly consistent — they possess what the research calls "a robust internalized model of creativity." Experts, by contrast, apply the same criteria with synchronized precision — almost mechanical in their clockwork alignment.
**The Visualization:** Rather than presenting this research as academic text or data visualization, Pétervári and J3ZZ transformed it into dance and sonic form. The body becomes the language of creativity evaluation. Movement embodies the criteria. The film asks: what does it look like when someone judges creativity? What are the physical, embodied dimensions of aesthetic judgment?
**The Score:** J3ZZ's composition had to bridge research and performance, translating abstract criteria (usefulness, originality) into sound that a viewer could feel, not just understand intellectually. The music becomes part of the research presentation — not decoration, but a method of knowledge-making.
FILMS
A 18-minute drama exploring grief, justice, and the lengths a father will go to protect his son. Feri embarks on a cross-European road trip with his son Dani — but beneath the surface of a father-son adventure lies a quest for reckoning.
**TRAVEL BUDDY** (Hungarian: *Útitárs*) is an 18-minute drama directed by Declan Hannigan that fuses the intimacy of a road movie with the tension of a revenge narrative. The story follows Feri traveling across Europe with his young son Dani in what appears to be a carefree father-son journey. Yet beneath this veneer lies something darker: a quest driven by grief and anger, rooted in a terrible injustice.
The film was born from a true crime that haunted the filmmaker. An Irish driver struck and killed two young children in Hungary, then left the country — refusing to return and face justice. As a father himself, Hannigan transformed this rage into art, writing a script that explores how trauma echoes across borders, how grief manifests as action, and what it means for a father to seek accountability not just for himself, but for his son's future understanding of justice and consequence.
The film was funded by MTVA (Hungarian Public Television), reflecting both its artistic merit and its engagement with urgent social themes.
FILMS
A documentary by animator Olga Pavlenko capturing children's voices and perspectives on Istanbul. J3ZZ composed an original score that honors the intimate, observational nature of the work.
**CHILDREN TELL ISTANBUL** is a documentary film directed by animator and visual artist Olga Pavlenko. Part of the **1000 AND 1 REALITIES** international project, the film centers the voices and perspectives of children living in Istanbul.
The documentary format allows for intimacy — extended listening to what children notice, what matters to them about their city, how they perceive the spaces they inhabit. Rather than adult interpretation of childhood, the film presents children's own observations and reflections directly.
The work emerged from the participatory workshops where children from Istanbul created drawings and shared stories about their lives in the city. From this raw material — visual and verbal — Pavlenko shaped a documentary portrait of Istanbul through children's eyes.
J3ZZ's compositional approach had to honor this intimacy. The music needed to support, not overwhelm; to enhance without editorializing. The result is a score that functions almost like a presence in the room — attentive, respectful, emotionally intelligent.
FILMS
An international educational animation project creating films from children's drawings in Iraq, Turkey, and Cyprus. J3ZZ composed original soundtracks for three animated shorts, a documentary, and promotional materials.
**1000 AND 1 REALITIES** is an international visual art initiative dedicated to promoting cultural diversity, tolerance, and multicultural dialogue through the voices of children. The project creates animated films based on drawings produced by children aged 6–10 in three cities: Najaf (Iraq), Istanbul (Turkey), and Nicosia (Cyprus).
**The Methodology:** The project conducted participatory workshops in each city where children were invited to draw representations of their daily lives, their neighborhoods, and their worlds. Artists then analyzed these drawings — what children chose to depict, which places they wanted to tell stories about — and transformed them into animated narratives. The resulting films were then screened across multiple countries (Iraq, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Cyprus), creating a cultural exchange: children in one country watching stories drawn by children in another.
**The Vision:** Rather than producing didactic content *about* these communities, the project centers the perspective of the children themselves. As the project states, it aims to "listen to the inside voice of different cultural communities and spread it through the world." The result is a genuinely cross-cultural artistic practice rooted in the drawn line, the child's eye, and the power of animation to make invisible worlds visible.
**The Sound Design:** J3ZZ composed original soundscapes for three animated shorts, an accompanying documentary, and promotional materials. The music had to work across linguistic and cultural boundaries — supporting visual narratives that spoke to children and adults alike, in multiple languages and cultural contexts.
FILMS
A short fiction film exploring an emotionally charged moment.
A short fiction film directed by Declan Hannigan exploring an emotionally charged moment of human vulnerability. The narrative captures a deceptively simple scene: a husband, wife, and his best friend sharing an innocent Sunday afternoon drink. Yet through careful observation and subtle restraint, life shifts for everyone — without a single word being spoken about what truly happened. A meditation on unspoken truths, intimacy, and the fragility of relationships.
FILMS
A four-minute science fiction short created in 48 hours for SCI-FI-LONDON 2012. A speculative fiction exploring population control, mortality, and the state's claim over biological life.
**FAR POINT** is a four-minute science fiction short film created during the SCI-FI-LONDON 48 Hour Film Challenge in April 2012. The film was produced by director Lorenzo Ciacciavicca and composer/performer J3ZZ, working under the extreme constraint of the competition: conceive, shoot, edit, and deliver a finished short film in a single weekend.
The narrative inhabits a dystopian near-future where governments have implemented radical measures to manage overpopulation and resource scarcity. The story explores the consequences of state control over reproduction and mortality — a future in which the right to live, to die, and to reproduce have become state-administered resources.
Despite the darkness of the premise, the film finds its power in specificity: not in grand world-building, but in the intimate human moment where policy becomes personal. The tight runtime and compressed production schedule forced the filmmakers toward economy and precision — every frame, every cut, every word carries weight.
The SCI-FI-LONDON 48 Hour Film Challenge is a prestigious competition that has launched significant careers in speculative fiction filmmaking. Films created under these constraints often demonstrate remarkable creativity precisely because of their limitations.
FILMS
Documentary film about a European residency bringing together twenty citizens from minority groups across the EU to share stories at risk of disappearing. J3ZZ participated as an artist in the residency and served as composer, performer, producer, sound designer, and sound editor of the film.
To be told is a documentary film directed by Lorenzo Ciacciavicca, born from a Grundtvig Workshop residency held in Florence (16–24 March 2012). The project brought together twenty citizens from minority groups across the European Union to share narratives and creative expressions — stories and cultural assets at risk of disappearing — translating them into drama, dance, photo, video, and written form.
J3ZZ participated as an artist in the residency itself, and took on the full audio responsibilities for the documentary: composer, performer, producer, sound designer, and sound editor.
Conceived and coordinated by Pietro Gaglianò, the project was managed by Marina Bistolfi at Associazione Fabbrica Europa and supported by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme (Grundtvig).
FILMS
A short film exploring themes of art, colors, sex, love, and communication.
A short film exploring themes of art, colors, sex, love, and communication. The filmmaker drew inspiration from Paul Klee's philosophy: "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." The composer crafted the score using cello and violin harmonies and dissonances as metaphors for the relationship dynamics between the two main characters.
FILMS
An experimental dance short film created during a creative residency in Cologne. Co-directed by Ana Maria Staicu and Paris Tume, with original music composition and production by J3ZZ.
**FISSION** is an experimental dance short film created during a collaborative residency in Cologne, Germany. The work was developed through the ROOTS & ROUTES International Association, a network dedicated to creating interdisciplinary artistic projects that promote cultural diversity and cross-border creative exchange.
The film was co-directed by Ana Maria Staicu and Paris Tume, whose collaborative vision shaped the project's visual language and conceptual framework. The central performer, Deborah Sophia Leist, embodies the film's exploration of movement, energy, and the body as a site of artistic expression.
J3ZZ composed and produced the original score, creating a sonic architecture that mirrors the physicality of the dance. The title "Fission" suggests both the splitting of atoms and the fragmentation/separation of bodies in space — a visual and conceptual metaphor that J3ZZ's music reinforces through its own structural approach to sound.
FILMS
An experimental animated short film. The composer created an entirely original soundscape using home-recorded audio samples, guitar, and violin — building a complete sonic landscape from intimate domestic sources.
**RICORDI DI COSA PROFUMA LA TERRA** (*Memories of What the Earth Smells Like*) is an animated short film directed by Olga Pavlenko, a Florence-based visual artist and animator.
The film represents a genuine artistic collaboration: Pavlenko's visual narrative paired with J3ZZ's compositional experiment in *site-specific sound design*. Rather than using traditional instruments or synthesized sounds, J3ZZ took an unorthodox approach — recording audio from their own living space and transforming these domestic sounds into a complete musical and sonic landscape.
This experimental methodology — creating art from the materials immediately at hand — echoes principles in contemporary visual art where artists work with found objects and everyday materials. By restricting the palette to home-recorded samples supplemented only by guitar and violin, J3ZZ created a deeply intimate sonic world, one that mirrors the film's poetic exploration of memory, scent, and the sensory dimensions of place.
FILMS
A video installation and short film by Iranian-born artist Massih Parsaei, with original soundtrack composition and production by J3ZZ. An early collaborative work exploring the intersection of visual and sonic art.
**IN BETWEEN** is a video installation and short film project by artist Massih Parsaei, created in 2010. The work represents an early exploration of multimedia artistic practice, combining visual art, narrative cinema, and sound design.
Massih Parsaei, born in Tehran, Iran, works across video installation, short film, and community-engaged artistic projects. His practice is rooted in creating spaces for dialogue and self-expression through contemporary art forms.
For this project, J3ZZ was commissioned to create and produce an original soundtrack — a full audio landscape designed to enhance the visual and narrative dimensions of the work. The collaboration represents an early example of cross-disciplinary creative practice, bridging composer and visual artist in service of a unified artistic vision.
PERFORMANCES
PERFORMANCES
The composer was commissioned to create music for choreographer Tímea Sebestyén's contemporary dance work.
SUPREMA is a choreographic work by Tímea Sebestyén exploring the Wonder Woman origin story from a distinctly female perspective. The title itself reclaims William Moulton Marston's original 1941 name for the character—before it became "Wonder Woman"—and interrogates the female ideal through contemporary dance and original soundtrack composition.
J3ZZ served as composer and producer of the entire soundtrack, crafting a sonic landscape that mirrors the piece's thematic concerns: the lie detector machine (Marston's invention), the lasso of truth, and the fracture between constructed ideals and lived female experience. The score employs:
- **"Tape" sequences:** Mechanical piano performance and tape loops evoking the sound of the lie detector's needle and Marston's polygraph machinery
- **Hammer and string textures:** Piano hammer sounds and stringed instruments representing voice, identity, and the machinery of control
- **"Nutter" and distorted vocal fragments:** Reflecting psychological fragmentation and the slippage between reality and fantasy
- **Finale: "False Truths"** — a layered, distorted composition with processed voice and warped electronics, capturing the disorienting moment when reality dissolves into constructed narrative
The two performers embody contrasting female archetypes—one austere and martial, the other conforming to conventional femininity—that eventually merge, probing "the layers of our personalities through our desires, sexuality, and fears." The work operates as a reflective mirror, inviting audiences to examine how cultural conditioning shapes understandings of womanhood and power.
Premiered May 5, 2019 at MU Theatre, Budapest (Imre Zoltán Program). Subsequently performed at A Tánc Fesztiválja (The Dance Festival) in Veszprém (September 2020) and in various IZP touring productions through 2022.
**Critical Reception:**
Critic Ladányi István (SÉD Journal, Vol. VI, Issue 5) highlighted the exceptional quality of J3ZZ's score, noting how the music intensifies the work's exploration of fractured identity and constructed femininity. The soundscape becomes inseparable from the choreography's interrogation of power, control, and the machinery of social conditioning.
PERFORMANCES
Space, sound, and dance installation featuring composer/music producer J3ZZ's commissioned soundtrack.
HOME BASE is a space, sound, and dance installation that premiered on April 14, 2016 at MOM Kulturális Központ in Budapest. Choreographed and directed by Nóemi Kulcsár with concept development by Rubi Anna, the work reimagines the classical 1841 Giselle ballet through a contemporary, immersive installation format. Rather than traditional passive spectatorship, audiences move freely through the space as "research observers," choosing their viewing perspective and becoming active participants in the choreographic exploration.
The work deconstructs and reinterprets Giselle's central narratives—the love triangle, jealousy, betrayal, and the supernatural split between desire and duty—translating classical themes into contemporary movement and lived experience. By dissolving the boundary between observer and observed, the installation probes questions of agency, complicity, and transformation.
J3ZZ served as composer and producer of the entire soundtrack, creating a contemporary sonic interpretation that mirrors the choreography's deconstruction of Giselle's classical narrative. The score navigates between harmonic language rooted in Giselle's Romantic era and abstracted, distorted textures that fragment and reassemble the ballet's emotional core—capturing the disorientation of a classical narrative recontextualized in real time and space. The music was also featured in promotional materials and trailers for the performance.
The installation was developed with dramaturge Cseh Dávid and lighting design by Csere Zoltán, creating an integrated sensory environment where sound, light, movement, and architectural space work together to dissolve conventional performance boundaries.
PERFORMANCES
A collaborative dance performance by EnKnapGroup, premiered February 2014 at Španski borci, Ljubljana. J3ZZ composed and produced the original score.
'What Happens When You Touch It' is a performance by EnKnapGroup that plays between the physical and the mental, moving from the rational, linear, logical world into the world of imagination. It is a game of impossibilities and warped reality filled with personal and collective consciousness and sub-consciousness, where the stage is transformed into a fragmented door to another world.
The performers communicate their thoughts, ideas and wishes, non-sense, illogical stories, and the absurdity that keeps us sane—unrealised wishes, hidden aggression, luminescent beauty, gory details and bizarre connections, obsessions, worst-case scenarios and superhuman abilities. A playground of the mind.
J3ZZ composed and produced the original score for the performance, creating a sonic landscape that navigates the fragmentation between rational thought and imagination, mirroring the performance's exploration of consciousness and the subconscious.
Premiered February 13–14, 2014 at Španski borci, Ljubljana as a double bill with 'What Remains' by Ana Štefanec and Tamás Tuza. The performance was developed in collaboration with AVA – Akademija za vizualne umetnosti (Academy for Visual Arts).
PERFORMANCES
A contemporary dance performance by Zoltán Grecsó exploring adolescence and fate. Premiered April 2013 at Jurányi Produkciós Közösségi Inkubátorház, Budapest. J3ZZ composed the ending soundtrack.
Touch me not (Nebáncsvirág) is a jaunty dance performance with black humour and self-irony about the passage of youth and the banality that follows. The work introduces four teenagers growing up through their weekdays—all hopes and desires. The setting is a nameless place with a special climate, possibly a greenhouse, where significant life questions find their answers in a magical world ruled by the Fates (Moirai) who spin the thread of life.
The narrative arc moves from hopeful youth full of dreams to the moment when girls appear and everything that truly matters becomes suddenly banal and unimportant. The greenhouse village ("fóliaváros") becomes the space where a young man named Kicsi Iván confronts the gap between his youthful aspirations and the mundane reality that awaits.
J3ZZ composed the ending soundtrack for the performance, creating a sonic landscape that mirrors the work's thematic arc from hope to resignation, from significance to banality.
Premiered April 19, 2013 at Jurányi Produkciós Közösségi Inkubátorház, Budapest. Earlier showing: August 14, 2012 at Millenáris Park, Budapest.
RELEASES
RELEASES
A trilogy of solo singles exploring experimental electronic music, sound design, and ambient textures.
Ex Nihilo is a trilogy of solo singles by J3ZZ, exploring the creation of sound from nothing — generative processes, minimal composition techniques, experimental electronic music, and ambient textures.
The series comprises three parts released in 2021:
- **Ex Nihilo 1** — Part 1 of 3
- **Ex Nihilo 2** — Part 2 of 3
- **Ex Nihilo 3** — Part 3 of 3
RELEASES
An album exploring themes of scale, perspective, and the relationship between the individual and the vast.
A Drop in the Ocean is an album by J3ZZ exploring themes of scale, perspective, and the relationship between the individual and the vast. Through experimental electronic music, ambient textures, and processed field recordings, the album creates a sonic meditation on insignificance and interconnectedness, examining how small moments resonate within larger systems.
RELEASES
A single release exploring field recordings and environmental soundscapes.
Stereo Woods is a single release by J3ZZ exploring the sonic landscape of forests through field recordings and sound design. The work captures the acoustic environment of woodland spaces, transforming natural sounds into an immersive stereo soundscape that blurs the boundary between documentation and composition.
RELEASES
Live recording of the Sur le fil solo violin improvisation premiere at Frau Frisor, Florence, September 12, 2013. Released digitally on September 12, 2015.
Live recording of the premiere performance of Sur le fil at Frau Frisor, Florence, on September 12, 2013. A single uninterrupted 25-minute solo acoustic violin improvisation — no preparation, no electronics. Released as a digital album on Bandcamp two years later, on the second anniversary of the performance.
RELEASES
Live recording of the Sur le fil solo violin improvisation at FKSE Studio Gallery, Budapest, July 2, 2015. Released digitally on September 12, 2015.
Live recording of Sur le fil performed at FKSE (Fiatal Képzőművészek Stúdiója Egyesület) Studio Gallery, Budapest, on July 2, 2015. A 15-minute solo acoustic violin improvisation — no preparation, no electronics. Curated by Erlich Gábor & Tábori András. Audio recorded by Zsolt László Kiss, video by Erlich Gábor. Edited and mixed by J3ZZ. Released as a digital single on Bandcamp on September 12, 2015.
RELEASES
Live recordings of seven improvisation sessions at Massolit Books & Café, Budapest (2015). J3ZZ as violinist and founder of the series, performing with no preparation alongside invited musicians from Budapest's contemporary and experimental scene.
MASSOLIT SERIES documents a cycle of seven improvisation concerts held at Massolit Books & Café, Budapest in 2015. Founded and hosted by J3ZZ, the concept was simple: two artists meet with no preparation and improvise, interact on the spot for approximately 30 minutes, followed by an audience Q&A session.
Each session brought together J3ZZ on violin and electronics with a different invited musician from Budapest's contemporary, experimental, and jazz scenes: Ernő Zoltán Rubik (Series 02), Áron Porteleki (Series 01 and 03), Endre Kertész (Series 04), Bálint Bolcsó (Series 05), and Zsolt Sőrés / Ahad (Series 06). Series 07 was a solo performance.
The complete live recordings were released as a digital album on September 10, 2015, on Bandcamp.
WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOPS
Educational workshops and ateliers exploring plant biosonification through the collective "Nout plant i chant". Participants learn to capture plant vibrations and transform them into melodies using sensor technology.
Biosonification Workshops are educational ateliers facilitated by J3ZZ and the collective "Nout plant i chant" that teach participants how plants can "sing" by using sensors to capture their vibrations and convert them into melodies. These immersive, participatory experiences aim to reconnect people with the plant world while raising awareness about botanical diversity, particularly Réunion's endemic flora.
The workshops combine science, art, and ecology through hands-on experimentation with the vibrotanica device technology. The three-atelier format (Zilien, Robinson, J3ZZ) explores different connections between botany and sound: theatre/music/herbalism, graphic transcription and botanical illustration, and plant-listening instrument design. Held across multiple locations in Réunion and other regions, these ateliers serve students, educators, and general audiences in natural and cultural settings.
The vibrotanica box device, developed since 2019, converts plant biodata into sound through sensors and specialized software. The school-based program "Vibrotanica dann lékol" brings this technology into educational curricula, combining electronic music, ecology, and music informatics for student-centered learning and musical creation.