Daniel Zea (1976) — https://danielzea.org
Swiss-Colombian designer, sound artist, and composer Daniel Zea lives and works in Geneva.
His practice is primarily situated in the fields of instrumental and electroacoustic music, hybrid performance combining sound, video, gesture-capture systems, and physical computing, as well as programming. His artistic work operates at the intersection of musical creation, technological research, and experimental performance.
Daniel Zea regularly collaborates on interdisciplinary projects spanning visual arts, choreography, and performance. He teaches at the Interactivity and Programming Laboratory at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD – Genève). He is also a founding member of the Vortex ensemble, where he serves as artistic co-director, composer, and performer of electroacoustic music.
Deeply committed to arts education, he has served as lead artist for multidisciplinary artistic residencies at the Royaumont Foundation and later at GRAME – National Center for Musical Creation in Lyon. He also teaches the Creative Experimentation Workshop in the Music and Movement program at the Geneva University of Music, alongside Florence Jaccottet.
His work has received numerous international distinctions. The Fuck Facebook Face Orchestra was awarded the Giga-Hertz Award by ZKM Karlsruhe in 2016. Pocket Enemy (2017) and Florox (2025) were selected for the International Rostrum of Composers. In 2023, he received the Liechti Foundation Prize for Sound Arts.
Daniel Zea's artistic practice critically examines the social, cultural, and political implications of digital technologies, often through a reflective and ironic lens. Alongside his work in contemporary creation, he is deeply engaged with traditional music. He explores the repertoire of Colombia's Caribbean coast—including cumbia, fandango, and porro—with Palenque la Papayera, and is a member of Cocoxoca and Gema y sus Valedores, ensembles dedicated to the traditional music of southeastern Mexico. He is also a member of the jaw harp quartet Ondanaconda.
In 2024, Daniel Zea was the featured guest composer at the Les Amplitudes Festival in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Help
SWITCH edu-ID
Administration
