2026 – Die Pest in London

A Plague in London (Die Pest in London)

Interdisciplinary Mixed-Media Performance | Orangerie Theater Cologne (2026)

Project Description: “A Plague in London” is a mixed-media production situated at the intersection of performative arts and digital scenography. Based on Daniel Defoe’s 1722 archival-style account, the work explores the structural and psychological dynamics of systemic crisis and social isolation. Directed by Kristóf Szabó, the production utilizes Defoe’s text as a conceptual framework to analyze the sociopolitical mechanisms of a pandemic—ranging from institutional denial and the enforcement of urban confinement to the eventual erosion of communal structures.

Visual and Medial Strategy: The production is characterized by a multi-layered visual dramaturgy, where Ivó Kovács’s video art functions as a spatial and temporal mediator. Rather than serving as a purely illustrative background, the digital layer operates as a generative environment that reflects the interiority of the protagonists and the oppressive atmospheric silence of a city under lockdown. The visual components analyze the tension between the historical archival source and contemporary digital aesthetics, translating the 17th-century experience of quarantine into a modern medial discourse. Kovács’s work focuses on the abstraction of architectural boundaries and the visualization of the “Planet of Viruses” concept, examining the human condition through a lens of digital depth and spatial deconstruction.

Credits:

  • Artistic Direction, Set Design & Sound Dramaturgy: Kristóf Szabó
  • Video Art: Ivó Kovács
  • Performance: Maximilian von Mühlen, Boshi Nawa, Lili Oksanen
  • Source Material: Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
  • Venue: Orangerie Theater, Cologne, Germany
  • Production Year: 2026

support:

Inventions (Rubik’s cube)

Inventions – Stories of Hungarian Genius

Location: CODE Center of Digital Experiences, Veszprém, Hungary

A group of people gathered in an art space (CODE) with abstract light projections on the walls (the shadow of Rubik's Cube), creating a dynamic atmosphere.

Opening: February 20, 2026

The screening, which combines the work of several creators, features five Hungarian inventors and scientists: Ernő Rubik, Ányos Jedlik, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Katalin Karikó, and János Neumann.

At the request of Centrum + Colloc Production, I created the section presenting Ernő Rubik’s most famous invention (Rubik’s cube).

Director, art director: Dániel Besnyő, Mátyás Kálmán
Editor: Gábor Tarcsay
Music: Áron Pfitzner
Narration text: Krisztián Nyáry
Narrator: Norbert Tuza

https://codeveszprem.hu/en

A vibrant, immersive room filled with colorful projections of Rubik's cubes on the walls and floor, creating a dynamic and playful atmosphere.
A vibrant display of colorful geometric patterns projected on walls and floor, creating an immersive digital art installation at Code Veszprem.

luminbird @imapp 2024

Jury Award at iMapp Bucharest – Winners League 2024 – Legacy’

Luminbird’

3D/ video: Ivó Kovács
Music: József Iszlai

Original ‘Big-wing’ motion courtesy of Derengo Animation, special thanks to La Luz.

Organizers:

Municipality of Bucharest, through CREART – Centre for Creation, Art, and Tradition of Bucharest

iMapp Bucharest – Winners League partner:

Parliament of Romania – Chamber of Deputies

iMapp Bucharest – Winners League International partners:

Chongqing Light Festival – CHINA,
Video Mapping Festival Lille – FRANCE,
Genius Loci Weimar Festival – GERMANY,
1minute Projection Mapping Competition – JAPAN,
Zsolnay Light Festival – HUNGARY,
ILO – International Light Festivals Organization

‘Neo-baroque I.’ projection, full documentation in VR mono/4K

use your phone or mouse to navigate

vimeo version

‘Neo-baroque I.’ was a 8 minutes two-channel video-projection on the ceiling of the Csokonai Theater’s staircase.
The projection was made for especially this location, and it was a part of the Lighthouse ‘ON’ sight specific group exhibition. (The exhibition ‘ON’ presents works by artists of Lighthouse light-art society at an unusual location by utilizing the special atmosphere of Csokonai Theater in Debrecen, Hungary and turning it into an impromptu art gallery: https://lighthouse.art/)

This is the full-length documentation, rendered in VR/360 mono format.

Time-stamps:

00:00 – 01:58
Some fractal based space-filling algorithms fills the space equally and symmetrically in every direction – the ‘journey’ starts from ‘realism’. Synchro-act’ issues. (this part made with mandelbulb3d)
00:02 – 04:48
– ‘Traveling without moving’ – the time factor has arrived, but the motions are illusory since there no place to go. We were left in the origin, only the world travels around us. Positive-negative spaces crossing each other, while some lights scanning/examining them. (Signed distance fields algorithm, made with Notch)
04:50 – 05:27
– ‘Di-vision’ or you could say – the limited, separated views caused this. The space is melting and then separated into two in a repeated way, day by day, like everyday.
05:28 – 06:21
– The space plays itself – ‘Game of Life’ like algorithms – Space – self-checking, some reflects in a Cartesian space.
06:22 – 07:28
– ‘Conceptual heaven’ – eternity is just a mental construction – the inner turbulence fields became so complex that it seams like an ancient baroque space-filler. In order to emphasize the effect some cloud-like turbulence were added behind, and the sky color is the ‘video-empty’ technical blue color (R:0,G:0,B:255). Conceptually empty, but rich in appearance. (‘There are nothing but appears as everything’)
07:29 – 08:02
– ‘Dissolve’ scene – a kind of a classic ending – everything dissolves back to space (in a clockwise direction – should be in counterclockwise), there were nothing, but through the conditions it appeared as everything.

The creative process was almost a seemingly unconscious process, which is dangerous because then subconscious patterns can take control and the end result will be cliché-like.
Thus, this work is also a summary of the experience (clichés) of the last ten years in the field of video mapping.
I hope that with the fact that abstract video has got a classic story arch, it also reflects today’s post-Baroque (post-truth, post-internet) era.

GEHIRNE – Theater Tanz Projection Art

GEHIRNE von K. Szabó / F.A.C.E. nach Gottfried Benn – über den Transhumanismus und die Abschaffung der Natur | Theater Tanz Projection Art @ Orangerie Theater – Köln | Premiere 20. Termine 21, 22, 23. September 17, 18, 19, 20. Oktober 2018 | 20 Uhr am Sonntag 18 Uhr | Karten: 0221 952 27 08 | https://faceensemble.wordpress.com/

A1_Gehirne_Plakat_CMYK_web