Category Archives: art

General arts and culture posts

Kentaur by Tamas Szentjoby

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Still, Kentaur

Tamás Szentjoby, or St.Auby (he often changes his name in protest against the official art system), is a prominent conceptual artists in Hungary. He originally made the film Kentaur (Centaur) between 1973-75, but it was banned before the final version was completed. In 2009, a found copy was restored and digitized for the Istanbul Biennial. As you can imagine, I was thrilled to have the rare opportunity to watch a copy with English subtitles at the Ludwig Museum the other day.

Still, Kentaur

Kentaur consists of about 40 minutes of found footage from the Socialist era showing citizens going about their daily lives. Without context, it  is unclear why these 12 fragments of factory workers or men in coffee shops were filmed, but it certainly doesn’t make sense with Szentjoby’s voice-overs. Szentjoby wrote dialogues dealing with themes of work and money and power, co-opting the language and concerns of Socialist propaganda and turning it on its head.

 “-Don’t you think that whatever exists, is an incitement? That the tradition of efficacy nowadays is none other than the efficacy of tradition? But, we’re theoretically done with that.

-So?

-Maybe there’s some point in my saying it.

-You’re saying very little.

-Still, I hope it has an effect.

-So it’s all about efficacy.

-Doesn’t speech have an effect?

-Only if you’re saying forbidden thing. That’s how it liberates the unknown within us, and unleashes on us the unknown that lies inside. Alright now, Margit, I’m getting off now.”

Phrases ranging from the philosophical to the blunt become ridiculous, and are at odds with visual scene. In addition to being provocative, it can be quite funny.  It is obvious why it was banned. Today, I find the film interesting as a reaction to the Socialist government of the time, naturally, but perhaps also the underlying questioning of unending, mechanized work and its effect on the human spirit is still relevant.

 

High Voltage photography of Dezső Szabó

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I caught photographer Dezső Szabó’s show “High Voltage” just before it closed at Trafó, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it despite being underwhelmed with the images I saw on the internet. In person however, the large-format, square photographs are fantastically evocative and clear compositions.  The staged vacuum around the lightning and the hyper-pigmentation makes you question the source of the image, and the black borders make you doubly aware that it is a photograph being presented as a photograph. Szabó creates his images in a large, enclosed box with many tools and apparatuses that mock the effect of natural phenomena. More images of the photographs and video on Trafó’s website here.

From the exhibition text:

“The artist is obsessively searching for possibilities of creating and re-creating reality with his photos, which are shots made about modelled views, which are constructed with simulational techniques. Dezső Szabó’s images are focusing on the documentary nature of photography, and the photos themselves speak about the modus operandi of the medium.

In order to create this imagery, the artist has been modelling various physical phenomena with the use of smoke machines, water circulators, and pyrotechnics. The latest images were also taken in laboratory conditions with the help of a custom-made Tesla-transformator, which creates electric discharges, which are smaller but similar phenomena as the thunderbolts of summer storms.”

Antal Lakner’s Passive Working Devices at the Ludwig Museum

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Antal Lakner’s retrospective exhibition Workstation at the Ludwig Museum, Budapest, covers the artist’s oeuvre of engaging, design-oriented conceptual artworks that challenge the passivity of the museum environment and the individual’s response to contemporary life. My favorite works, which are representative of many of Lakner’s concerns, are the INERS Passive Working Devices. It is a scientific-sounding name for these cleanly designed  machines that look as if they belong in a gym or an office–in fact, exactly the haunts of our post-industrial society of office workers who must pursue physical activity as exercise, a leisure activity, rather than as a necessary part of everyday life. Absurdly, these machines mimic the actions of formerly common labor, such as sawing, walking with a wheelbarrow, and house painting, transforming them into exercises that produce no result.

A demonstration of the Passive Working Devices in action:

Forest Master in action.

Home Transporter (1999) in action.

Wall Master (1998) in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These devices highlight Lakner’s interest in the individual’s role in society, here in relation to physical labor. The obviously playful, interactive aspect of these devices belies their critical nature. There is a tension in the absurdity of the work which mimics usefulness but serves no purpose, between the carefully manufactured aesthetic that is in fact hand-made, and in the interactivity of machines which call for action while questioning agency. All these tensions suggest that modern life might turn us into automatons if we do not remain aware of the issues that the INERS Passive Working Devices bring up.

Zoom Glove

Lakner’s newer work, First Life Tools, is based on web communication devices and here the critique of modern life breaks down a bit. The tools allow you to practice zooming, work out your scrolling fingers on a little track wheel, or drag a heavy, magnetized mouse that strengthens your hand and arm. After a day of Photoshop, these devices might seem incredibly relevant in a non-ironic sense. Certainly the technology the devices train you for is contemporary, but I think the anxiety over technology in contemporary life (think Marshall McLuhan) that the First Life Tools suggest feels dated. More than that, I can’t help thinking that the focus on the physical isn’t nearly as relevant to web communication as, for example, dealing with the mental schizophrenia of trying to keep up with many streams of online information on multiple wired devices would be.

Scroll Master