EMAP is a European residency network supporting emerging artists working at the intersection of media art, technology, and interdisciplinary practice. Following a yearly international open call, we select media artists or collectives who will take part in an international two months, fully funded residency.

The selected artist for iMAL this year is Éva Csonka with her project The Most Dangerous Games We (Might) Play. She will be working in collaboration with Pia Baltazar.

Audiovisual solo performance with robotic electric guitars, monochords.
Psychedelic version of the original score and instrument

The piece begins with giving continuous inputs to an electric orchestra. As the score begins to play, the sound of the cellos starts to occupy the physical space with their immediate presence. New behaviors begin to emerge, and the robotic instrument slowly creeps towards its operating limits with an ever-shorter series of signals. Gravity and (im)balance are becoming visible and audible. By choosing a fragile self-made robotic instrument we use sound and movement to explore the implications of an uncertain physical presence: as the rhythmic density and diversity of the cellos continues to increase, the overlapping and mutually interfering inputs to the robot’s engine lead to a chain reaction that escalates into a chaotic dance of the machines creating their own sound world.

There is a never-ending loop between the “machine operator” aka performer and the sound installation itself that keeps the flow going. Changing the speed and operating habits is a way of dictating the rhythm and managing the score in real time. Tuning two of the motorized cellos so that their high and low notes (basses) complement each other vocally, while at the same time a competition-like scenario arises between the instruments as we change their speed and playing limits.

Instead of using fully capable industrial robots I refrain to construct self-made models instead, while utilizing only the most basic forms of movements. In order to gain the performative potential of these robots and their musical character, I assemble various raw-materials into new instrumental bodies and deconstruct to their core elements. I start by playing with the shape, the dimensions and the height of the monochord, and with the distance between the instrument ́s body and the bow.

The interest is in features such as gravity and (im)balance, as well as how far the boundaries can be pushed and indeed what are they? By bringing these instruments together in different scenarios and settings, I aim to explore their physical presence and relationships as a whole. I play one or two cellos by myself manually as I am orchestrating the robotic ones during the concert. I also produced a large-scale adaptation of the idea, where the audience was able to enter the soundscape during the performance.

By blending different techniques and musical genres, the improvisational composition process aims to evoke the spirit of psychedelia, where this soundscape brings people together. A DIY robotic e-cello bow, which was developed as a kind of extension of the body and it is partly made of scrap metal and inexpensive steel materials. This idea has been taken to the next level, by building a DIY e-guitar, that pushes the the boundaries further to reach the desired “psychedelic” sound. The use of rusty wire instead of cello strings produces a kind of fractured, broken soundscape, while the motors and physical construction of the instrument create new possibilities for generating sound. I play one or more instruments manually myself, while I am orchestrating the robotic ones. In the new version, I use pre-wired Stratocaster and P90 pickups instead of contact microphones to provide the robotic instruments with psychedelic soundscapes, while the implementation of the sound through robotic movements remains partially (un)controllable. During the upcoming residency at iMAL, Éva will collaborate with Pía on interaction design and compositional strategies and methods.

Éva B. Csonka is a new sound- and media artist with a focus on performative sound architectures, live composition and new media. Her work draws from various music genres such as classical, avant-garde and psychedelia. She describes her work as „temporary utopias“, interested in the consequences and dangers of digitalization at the moment of personal perception, she continues this longing and the challenges of trial and error in real time through sound, light and space. Losing oneself and letting go is one of the main elements of her works.

Since 2026 part of the research group „Orchestra of the future“ at IRCAM, Paris. In 2023 she spent some time in New York City, visiting public venues dedicated to body movement, classical and avant-garde music at the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center and Village Vanguard. B.Csonka’s work were performed and presented at different festivals and locations globally, such as ZKM-Kubus, Ultrasound Festival, Inside Sonic, Roundabout Festival, Robotic Soundscapes, Next Generation X, IRCAM Manifeste, NYCEMF 2025–’26 and the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, among others.

Initially trained in dance and experimental architecture focusing on extended megastructures and brutalism, yet she later switched to new media art with a focus on new sound architectures.

Pia Baltazar is an intermedia composer, undisciplinary researcher and independent curator. Born in Toulouse, France in 1976, she lives and works between Brussels and Montreal.

With a diverse background in engineering, philosophy of art, digital creation and musical composition, her practice has been developing for over twenty years at the intersection of interactive design, philosophy and artistic production.

Her artistic research interests revolve around the creative possibilities of the interplays between the senses (hearing, vision, touch...) and on the involvement of physicality and spatiality, both in the creative process and the aesthetic experience. Through this, she is interested in exploring liminal states of perception and consciousness, and how these generate specific modes of temporality and relationality.

She pursued a career as an electroacoustic composer and intermedia artist, working solo from 2002 to 2011, with commissions from, among others, the French State, the INA-GRM, the GMEA and the IMEB, the National Centres for Musical Creation, BEK, the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts… and performances at international festivals such as Borealis (Bergen, NO), the Radio France Festival (Montpellier, FR), Présence Électronique (Paris, FR) and OutHear (London, UK). From 2011 to 2022, she worked primarily with Aurélie Baltazar as part of the duo Les Baltazars, within which they developed an original body of work spanning visual arts, live performance, sensory dramaturgy and composition. This work, centred on sensory experience and light, has taken the form of performance installations, cross-sensory installations, mist sculptures and light tableaux. It has been presented at various venues and festivals in France and internationally, such as Le Phénix, Scènes de Valenciennes (Cabaret de curiosités festival), Reims (Orbis Pictus festival), LydGaleriet and Bit TeaterGarasjen (Bergen, Norway), La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lèz-Avignon, the 30/30 festival in Bordeaux, Rencontres-i at the Hexagone Scène Nationale de Meylan, and at several group and solo exhibitions. Since 2023, she has embarked on a new phase of solo work combining musical composition and installation, often in a site-specific context. She has since presented her work at the CTM and SPATIAL festivals in Berlin, FIBER in Amsterdam, INSCAPE in Seoul, and MUTEK, Elektra and Akousma in Montreal, amongst others.