TOPIA
Immersive Light & Sound Installation
2019–present
A project by Zalán Szakács
Spatial Music Composition Sound Design — Pandelis Diamantides
About
TOPIA is an immersive light and sound installation exploring the relationship between digital screen culture, architecture, and spatial perception. Drawing on the historical functions of screens as partitions, filters, shelters, and means of concealment, the work challenges their contemporary definition as surfaces for displaying images.
Through large-scale projections of light onto atmospheric haze, TOPIA creates immaterial walls that appear, dissolve, and transform the surrounding architecture. These luminous surfaces establish a shifting screenscape in which the boundaries between physical and virtual space become unstable. Visitors encounter the screen not simply as an object to observe, but as a spatial environment to inhabit.
The installation draws on the media-historical research presented in Screen Genealogies: From Optical Device to Environmental Medium (2019), edited by Craig Buckley, Rüdiger Campe, and Francesco Casetti, as well as historical ideas about perspective and spatial representation. By reconnecting the screen's architectural origins with its contemporary digital functions, TOPIA investigates how technological interfaces shape our experience of space, presence, and perception.
Light and sound operate together as spatial materials, creating an environment in which apparently solid surfaces become intangible and architecture is continuously redefined. The characteristic blue light evokes contemporary electronic displays while transforming their familiar visual language into an embodied, atmospheric experience.
TOPIA proposes an expanded understanding of the screen: no longer simply a medium for representing images, but an immaterial architecture capable of shaping the space around us.
Credits
Concept, Research & Light Composition
Zalán Szakács
Spatial Music Composition & Sound Design
Pandelis Diamantides
Light Programming — Original Production
Boris Acket
Production Design — Original Production
Bob Roijen / RAITO
Production Assistance — Original Production
Colin Schram, Fanni Hegyi
Technical Production — Re.LIGHT 2026
Franz Kauffmann
Light Programming — Re.LIGHT 2026
Loden Rietveld
Technical Information
Year: 2019–present
Format: Immersive light and sound installation
Medium: Projected light, atmospheric haze, sound
Duration: 15 minutes (original installation)
Dimensions: 10 × 3 m (original installation)
Configuration: Adaptable to different architectural environments
Awards
2026 — ILO Artist Award, International Light Festivals Organisation, Spotlight Talks, Bucharest, Romania
Selected Exhibitions
2026 — Re.LIGHT International Light Art Festival, Städtische Galerie Leerer Beutel, Regensburg, Germany
2025 — KLANGLICHT, Dom im Berg, Graz, Austria
2025 — Museumnacht010, V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2024–2025 — Rencontres Internationales, Loods6, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2024 — Remarkable Meetings with Disgusting Men, W139, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2022–2023 — Light Art Museum, Budapest, Hungary
2021 — Rotterdam Art Week, Steur, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2021 — pre-reserved, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Prototype 3)
2020 — Het Hem, Zaandam, Netherlands (Prototype 2)
2019 — De Vasim, Nijmegen, Netherlands (Prototype 1)
Selected Press
Regal Literar
Spotlight Talks 2026: arta luminii între reprezentare, public și identitatea orașului
10 October 2026
Read article
Links
Official Project Documentation — Zalán Szakács
Re.LIGHT International Light Art Festival — TOPIA
TOPIA
Immersive Light & Sound Installation
2019–present
A project by Zalán Szakács
Spatial Music Composition Sound Design — Pandelis Diamantides
About
TOPIA is an immersive light and sound installation exploring the relationship between digital screen culture, architecture, and spatial perception. Drawing on the historical functions of screens as partitions, filters, shelters, and means of concealment, the work challenges their contemporary definition as surfaces for displaying images.
Through large-scale projections of light onto atmospheric haze, TOPIA creates immaterial walls that appear, dissolve, and transform the surrounding architecture. These luminous surfaces establish a shifting screenscape in which the boundaries between physical and virtual space become unstable. Visitors encounter the screen not simply as an object to observe, but as a spatial environment to inhabit.
The installation draws on the media-historical research presented in Screen Genealogies: From Optical Device to Environmental Medium (2019), edited by Craig Buckley, Rüdiger Campe, and Francesco Casetti, as well as historical ideas about perspective and spatial representation. By reconnecting the screen's architectural origins with its contemporary digital functions, TOPIA investigates how technological interfaces shape our experience of space, presence, and perception.
Light and sound operate together as spatial materials, creating an environment in which apparently solid surfaces become intangible and architecture is continuously redefined. The characteristic blue light evokes contemporary electronic displays while transforming their familiar visual language into an embodied, atmospheric experience.
TOPIA proposes an expanded understanding of the screen: no longer simply a medium for representing images, but an immaterial architecture capable of shaping the space around us.
Credits
Concept, Research & Light Composition
Zalán Szakács
Spatial Music Composition & Sound Design
Pandelis Diamantides
Light Programming — Original Production
Boris Acket
Production Design — Original Production
Bob Roijen / RAITO
Production Assistance — Original Production
Colin Schram, Fanni Hegyi
Technical Production — Re.LIGHT 2026
Franz Kauffmann
Light Programming — Re.LIGHT 2026
Loden Rietveld
Technical Information
Year: 2019–present
Format: Immersive light and sound installation
Medium: Projected light, atmospheric haze, sound
Duration: 15 minutes (original installation)
Dimensions: 10 × 3 m (original installation)
Configuration: Adaptable to different architectural environments
Awards
2026 — ILO Artist Award, International Light Festivals Organisation, Spotlight Talks, Bucharest, Romania
Selected Exhibitions
2026 — Re.LIGHT International Light Art Festival, Städtische Galerie Leerer Beutel, Regensburg, Germany
2025 — KLANGLICHT, Dom im Berg, Graz, Austria
2025 — Museumnacht010, V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2024–2025 — Rencontres Internationales, Loods6, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2024 — Remarkable Meetings with Disgusting Men, W139, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2022–2023 — Light Art Museum, Budapest, Hungary
2021 — Rotterdam Art Week, Steur, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2021 — pre-reserved, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Prototype 3)
2020 — Het Hem, Zaandam, Netherlands (Prototype 2)
2019 — De Vasim, Nijmegen, Netherlands (Prototype 1)
Selected Press
Regal Literar
Spotlight Talks 2026: arta luminii între reprezentare, public și identitatea orașului
10 October 2026
Read article
Links
Official Project Documentation — Zalán Szakács
Re.LIGHT International Light Art Festival — TOPIA