10/ theatre — projections and music
Pookie
Projection mapping and music for Pookie, directed by Alžbeta Vrzgula at Divadlo Jozefa Gregora Tajovského in Zvolen, 2023.
01/ live audio-visual performance
Narrative Absence
Narrative Absence is an AV performance exploring the roles stories play in human life and civilization. It examines how individual and collective narratives shape our paths, and what happens when they collapse—often resulting in turmoil or rebirth.
The work features fictional histories, tool usage, and social animal flocks disoriented by radar pings. The sonic landscape is built from my upcoming second album, expanding on themes from the debut record Amalgam. Premiered at Lunchmeat Festival 2023.
02/ site-specific installation
Nu Pogodi!
This project reflects on cycles of occupation and conflict. It marks 57 years since the Warsaw Pact invasion of Slovakia and 21 years of subsequent occupation, which ended with the Velvet Revolution.
Referencing the tension in the Soviet-era animated series Nu, Pogodi! ("Just You Wait!"), the work connects historical cycles to the current war in Ukraine. It captures the growing frustration over the conflict, insufficient support, and Europe's geopolitical unpreparedness.
03/ site-specific audio-visual installation
Trenčín Dolinečka
Trenčín Dolinečka brings laser projection and spatial sound to the boathouse and the old railway bridge on the banks of the Váh. Created for this riverside setting, it opened Ozveny (Echoes), a programme of light and sound installations led by Boris Vitázek as part of the European Capital of Culture Trenčín 2026.
The projection draws on folk patterns from the Púchov valley, collected in Drahotína Kriško-Kardossová’s 1929 book Slovenské ľudové vzory zo štyroch krajov Slovenska. Floral ornaments gradually fragment and fall away from the boathouse façade, suggesting memories fading over time. Viewers could experience the work from the road bridge or beneath the boathouse, where the sound brought them closer to the installation.
The accompanying music reinterprets the folk ballad “Trenčín dolinečka”, usually sung with lightness, in a more intimate and melancholic register. Created in memory of the victims of the Zámocká street shooting in Bratislava, the work connects inherited folk imagery with contemporary experiences of love, closeness, and loss.
Trenčín 2026 programme ↗ · Press release (SK) ↗
04/ multimedia installation
Infinite Countdown
Infinite Countdown is an installation exploring the phenomenon of “AI psychosis”: a growing spectrum of delusions, anxieties, and messianic visions associated with chatbots and artificial intelligence. The work draws on posts scraped by a Reddit crawler from subreddits about AGI, the singularity, and chatbots—posts obsessed with recursion, consciousness, the soul, and the idea that consciousness can be summoned simply by talking to an AI for long enough. These fragments reveal a fragile psychological landscape where hype, paranoia, and techno-spiritual desires intertwine.
The installation views this condition as a microcosm of broader social instability. The current debate oscillates between “AGI is just around the corner” and “AI is worthless and overheated by its own hype.” Between these poles lie concerns about mass automation, investment bubbles, chaotic regulation, real progress in medicine, dependence on automated systems, and the gradual “enshittification” of the internet. The countdown becomes a metaphor for a society convinced that something momentous is approaching—even though nobody knows exactly what.
Visually, Infinite Countdown takes shape through LED screens displaying raw forum posts, interrupted by an endless countdown and ambiguous AI-generated faces—pixelated, incomplete, lit like people awakening their chatbots’ consciousness in the silence of a screen. The installation was created in tandem with AI: its code and pixel art come from the very systems it critiques.
05/ dance performance
Autonomy
Autonomy is the collective work of dancer Soňa Kúdelová and visual artist Boris Vitázek, in which they deal with the issue of personal autonomy, as opposed to subconscious fears and external influences in the context of creative work.
Autonomy is the culmination of the AUTO-trilogy, following the solo performances Autopilot and Autocorrect, in which Soňa opened a confrontation with elementary conflicts in her life.
Choreography, text and dance: S. Kúdeľová
Music and visuals: B. Vitázek
Dramaturgy: Kúdeľová, Vitázek
Dramaturgy of the text: Zuzana Husárová
Lighting design and technical support: Dominik Novák, Peter Dolog
Costume: People on Earth
Production: oz CHAOSMOS
Premiere: 3 June 2020, A4 – Priestor súčasnej kultúry, Bratislava
The project was supported from public funds by the Art Support Fund.
The project partner is the Bratislava self-governing region.
06/ site-specific sound installation
Music of Nature
A site-specific sound work distributes voice fragments throughout the vertical architecture of the Hamsun Center. By isolating and distributing different syllables to individual speakers placed throughout the building’s interconnected spaces, the installation creates a cascading, artificial reverberation.
The sound follows a rotating script that alternates between concepts from Knut Hamsun’s literature and impressions from the MAGA/MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movements. Hamsun’s tendency to shun city culture and worship a return to simpler times is reminiscent of current right-wing and conservative political movements. This translates into fundamentally anti-establishment views that seek to discredit institutions built by modern democracy.
The installation repeats every 20 minutes, with 8 minutes of sound content.
Concept and sound: Boris Vitázek
Vocals: Ľubomíra Smolárová
07/ projection mapping
Second Litany
Artistic duo Boris Vitázek and Zuzana Sabová come from Bratislava. Their installations and projects connect Boris’ new media experience and Zuzana’s painting and sculpting work. Together they strive to enrich what the current art scene offers in the field of videomapping and murals, so they carefully work with themes and locations. They bring something unknown to them, something based on local specifics.
Polygonally modelled faces are scattered around in clusters as known from traditional old Christian paintings. After all, worshipping deities, ceremonial cult, various religious groups and ceremonies have been part of our society since its beginnings. However astonishing it may sound, today we can observe principles of similar behaviours in the rave culture. Its atmosphere gives its participants space to pause, take a breath and let their thoughts flow freely.
Dance movements blend with prayers and wailings of ancient figures. They are accompanied by the musical component with a slow rhythm which adds an almost meditative character to the entire experience. With their installation for the SIGNAL Festival, Boris Vitázek and Zuzana Sabová follow on their project presented at Bratislava’s White Night.
08/ orchestral collaboration
National Philharmonic Orchestra
Human Responsibility is a collaboration with the State Philharmonic Košice, presented as part of Filharmónia × Art & Tech Days. Conducted by Marián Lejava, the concert brought orchestral music together with visual and lighting design by Boris Vitázek.
The visuals explore how we perceive time through human history and our relationship with technology. Tools and curiosity carry a double potential: to sustain humanity or contribute to its destruction. Minimalist projections and lighting bring these themes into dialogue with the orchestra.
The concert formed part of the ARS NOVA contemporary arts festival and Art & Tech Days, in collaboration with Creative Industry Košice.
09/ interactive sound installation
Grafofon
Grafofon turns drawing into a shared musical performance. Created with Zuzana Sabová and supported by 4D Gallery, the project grew from a collaboration with Milan Adamčiak and the interpretation of his experimental visual scores.
The instrument carries a thirteen-metre paper loop along a six-metre steel frame. A camera reads drawings and objects on the moving surface, while computer vision translates their positions and shapes into sound. Performers and visitors can change the composition by drawing, adding objects, or altering the paper’s movement.
Across successive versions, the instrument evolved from a hand-cranked mechanism into a motorised system with sample triggering, text recognition, and rhythmic sequencing. Presented at the Slovak National Gallery and Pohoda Festival, Grafofon makes the creation of electronic music visible, tactile, and open to participation.
Group photograph (2012): Gabriela Zigová.
Grafofon detail photograph: Juraj Starovecký.
Pohoda photograph: original on Flickr ↗
Further works
11/ multimedia theatre performance
Subjective Future
Created in collaboration with Petra Fornayová, Subjective Future is a stage performance that heavily integrates virtual reality, allowing actors to interact directly with VR environments during the piece.
Conceived and directed by Petra Fornayová, the work brings together dance, theatre, visual art, documentary film, and music to explore its performers’ imagined futures. Boris Vitázek developed the visual concept, realisation, and supervision of the visuals. Premiered at A4 in Bratislava on 17 May 2017.
12/ audio-visual installation
Outside Context Problem
Inspired by Iain M. Banks’ novel Excession, Outside Context Problem explores encounters between civilisations with radically unequal technological power. It turns this idea towards our relationship with online AI systems: we encounter a reflection shaped by their models of us, while their influence remains difficult to perceive.
The installation premiered at Nuit Blanche in Bratislava in 2019 and was made with Unity, Blender, and Reaktor.
13/ interactive installation
Lush fields ready to harvest
Lush fields ready for harvest was developed specifically for the KIOSK festival in Žilina, integrating interactive media into the festival environment.
About & CV
I’m Boris Vitázek, an intermedia artist and creative technologist based in Bratislava, Slovakia. I work with audiovisual performance, installations, electronic music, and theatre. Through creative coding and custom software, I explore relationships between organic systems, digital environments, and social life.
My practice includes public projection mapping, interactive works, and stage design. I have performed live visuals with artists including Actress, Sote, and Andy Stott. In 2023, I released my solo album Amalgam on Weltschmerzen.
Selected exhibitions & festivals
- Infinite Countdown — solo exhibition, ForMAAT gallery, Trenčín, 2025.
- Tool Hierarchy — solo exhibition, Pakt, Bratislava, 2022.
- Ecolalia — collaboration presented at Ars Electronica, 2022.
- Human Responsibility — collaboration with the Slovak Philharmonic, Art & Tech Days, Košice, 2021.
- Second Litany — SIGNAL Festival, Prague, 2017.
- Grafofon — Galanta Songs, 2012; Adamčiak, začni!, Slovak National Gallery.
- Lunchmeat Festival — Prague, 2013, 2016, 2019; Narrative Absence, 2023.
- Nuit Blanche — Slovakia, 2014–2021, 2025.
- List í ljósi — Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, 2019, 2020, 2025.
- Vetrarhátíð — Reykjavík, Iceland, 2019, 2020, 2025.
- Grape Festival — projection mapping, 2023, 2024.
- Prisma Festival — Portugal, 2021.
- ADSR — exhibition, Festival nasuti, 2021.
- Festival Spectaculare — Prague, 2017, 2018, 2021.
- Next Festival — Bratislava, 2015, 2019.
- Pohoda Festival — Slovakia, 2015–2017.
- GEM Festival — live visuals, Georgia, 2017.
- Art & Tech Days — installation, 2017.
Theatre
- Gen Z — stage design and projections, DPOH, 2024.
- Pookie — projections and music, directed by Alžbeta Vrzgula, DJGT, Zvolen, 2023.
- Autonomy — script, video, and music; concept, direction, and dance by Soňa Kúdelová, 2021.
- Subjective Future — co-created with Petra Fornayová, using VR and Kinect.
- SKRAT — visual collaborations on Buggers and Suckers, Delusion, Trial via Trial, and The Inside of the Inside.
Workshops
- Digital media workshop and lecture — AFAD, Bratislava, 2022.
- PBR rendering and 3D printing — NODE Forum for Digital Arts, 2017.
- VVVV — Progressbar hackerspace, Slovakia, 2017.
- VVVV in clubs — Bratislava, 2017.
- Game design — Invisible Štiavnica, Slovakia, 2014.
- Vivid visuals with VVVV — Prague, 2012.
- VJ workshop — Artorium, Slovakia, 2012.