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Digital Musics & Sound Art Anerkennung - Honorary Mention 2025

Bora: Bora

Zhao Zhou

Bora: Bora manifests a sensory whitespace—a deliberate pause in the relentless rhythm of the created environment. In this installation, information reveals itself not through visual spectacle, but through air movements that can be both felt and heard, inviting visitors to reconnect with their senses beyond sight. 

The work transforms a tunnel of aluminum frames into an untouched zone, where transparent enclosures housing 96 speakers generate a dynamic wall of sound and air. These turbulent yet tender forces sculpt the atmosphere into a tactile presence, rendering the intangible nearly tangible. The result is an environment that both disorientates and grounds, shifting perception from visual dominance to a multi sensorial experience. 

These speakers function beyond their conventional purpose, creating not only auditory experiences but also calibrated air movements. A distinctive percussive sound emerges as each air vortex is generated—a continuous, low-frequency tone without variation in pitch that forms the foundation of the piece. This sonic layer merges with the composed soundscape to create a space that resists familiar interpretation. 

By redirecting focus from the eyes to the often-neglected senses of hearing and touch, Bora: Bora challenges conventional perceptual norms. Its immersive soundscape defies easy localization, while programmed air vortices animate the space with movement. This invisible instability does not simply command attention—it also invites visitors to surrender control and embrace sensory flux. 

Drawing inspiration from the vortex theory of the atom, the installation speculates on a technological paradigm that values ephemeral forces over mere visual innovation. Here, turbulence itself becomes a material, shaping the void into an elusive, ever-changing presence. 

For a fleeting moment, Bora: Bora offers a raw, unmediated encounter with the currents of sensation that flow continuously, yet typically unnoticed, around and through us. 



Links: https://vimeo.com/1045530742, https://zhao-zhou.com/works/borabora

Concept, artistic direction & design: Zhao Zhou
Soundscape: Mint Park
Embedded software: Nathan Marcus
Mentorship: Zalán Szakács 

With support from: Amarte Foundation & Schemerlicht Talent Programme 

Zhao Zhou (NL) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates air-based sensory disruption and spatial experience. Trained in Interior Architecture at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, he creates installations employing arrays of air vortex generators to craft moments of suspension where tactile and auditory perception gently eclipse sight. His work advocates for techno-spatial autonomy by exposing and reconfiguring the hidden constraints of built environments. He has exhibited at GOGBOT Festival, SEE DJERBA, and at Dutch institutions such as BRUTUS and Kunstfort. 

Bora: Bora offers a sensual breathing break within the intensity of the created environment. Rather than just relying on visual spectacle, the installation communicates through air and sound. A walkable tunnel of aluminum frames becomes an untouched zone where 96 speakers housed in transparent boxes generate moving air and layered sound, creating a tactile, immersive atmosphere. This multisensory space shifts attention from sight to touch and hearing, unsettling and grounding visitors at once. Programmed air vortices and an unlocalizable soundscape invite surrender to sensory fluctuation. Drawing from atomic vortex theory, the work values impermanence and invisible forces, turning turbulence into a material. Bora: Bora reveals the hidden energies that constantly flow around us—often unnoticed, but deeply felt. The jury was impressed by this opportunity to experience sound art playfully in the open air without any barriers to entry and to perceive nature with a form of sensuality.