Motion picture plays a central role, in Szemző Tibor’s work, being finely intertwined with verbality, speech sound and multilingualism.
His interest in cinematography was inspired by his ever-lasting collaboration with media artist Péter Forgács (Group 180’s former narrator) and started with the compositions written for Forgács’s films. Szemző began to create individual, music-based films in 1985, which is constantly present in his activity.
In 1986/87 he founded Fodderbasis, an open music ensemble. The group’s projects were partly multimedia events. They produced some publications, in connection with Forgács’s films.
In 1996, Szemző launched the Gordian Knot Creative Music Laboratory, which operated until 2007.
His highly successful and award-winning film was made about the life of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, pilgrim, linguist and tibetologist. The film, titled A Guest of Life – Alexander Csoma de Kőrös (1999-2006) is an intermix animation film and 8mm footage. Both the movie and its stage version are starred by actresses Susannah York and Mari Törőcsik. The direct antecedents of the film were the Invisible Story (1996-2000) based on Béla Hamvas’ prose and The Other Shore (Japan, 1996).[18] Other prominent pieces in Szemző’s oeuvre are Tractatus based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1991-1995), the film Free Fall (1996), the Free Fall Oratorio (CD, 1999), and »K«Engravings, a multimedia-series on Franz Kafka, covering the ten-year cycle between 2008 and 2018.

Szemző Tibor is a long-time collaborator of Tranzit House. On the occasion of our 26th anniversary, we invited him to talk about his work and artistic process. We warmly welcome you to come and meet him.

The program is part of the RESONANCES – Transnational collaborations in contemporary music project. Our mission is to promote and disseminate regional and international contemporary music productions.

You can support Tranzit House by buying a support ticket on Eventbook: (https://eventbook.ro/other/bilete-in-dialog-cu-tibor-szemo-intalnirile?hall=casa-tranzit-cluj-napoca) or on the Patreon platform: https://www.patreon.com/TranzitHouse. Every contribution and gesture of solidarity is very important to us!

This cultural project was co-funded by the Communitas Foundation and the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN). The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grantee.