Borrowing the title from Hal Foster book 'Return of the real', my return to the real would be possible through the works selected for the exhibition.
Digital and new media have become an obsession in the contemporary world. Images and technology overwhelmed reality. No one can live without a virtual connection from the youngest to the old age. Even the simple things in life are now dependent on virtual reality. This way of living has no return, and disconnection is no longer possible.
We are facing a solid fastener to a chaotic world, and the human behind no longer belongs to it. Almost all the exhibition artworks have reality as a point of departure. Back to nature, the self, and pure and kind humanity. It should be the demand of all of us.
The work of Márk Martinkó also plays with the paradoxical nature of digitalization. He used a scanner to digitize a living plant, archiving the organism's current state. Archiving of moments is inherent in the digital world, which Mona Birkás draws attention to with her work. Her video embodies the rewritten relationship of the 21st-century man to reality, who is constantly monitored by the online world. Hamza Kirbas, draws attention to the mechanisms of social institutions controlled by virtual media. Om Bori used Google Earth to trace back important places in her life. Just like her memories, real locations disappear in the virtual space. The artwork by Zoltán Vadászi is a collection of the outcomes of a medical imaging device. He used CT to virtualize air, one of the most basic natural substances necessary for human life. Eirini Sourgiadiaki’s work 'The Medicals' also uses medical imaging, but she connects its paradoxical nature to Greek mythology. Veronika Szendro’s 'Underwater' also deals with digitalization from a ritual aspect. It symbolizes how contemporary humans plunge into the 'sacred' stream of life.
Memories of a past time, or projection for a future of machines, a virtual future.
"I want be a machine" Andy Warhol once said.
Would it be time for an optical illusion?
Jacques Lacan defines the real in terms of trauma, but should we avoid the real as trauma is caused by the missed encounter with the real?
NFTs of the exhibition:
MONA BIRKÁS: PEARL
"Pearl was inspired by the dual nature of everyday technology and the internet. On the one hand, it makes our lives easier; a lot of beauty and joy comes from it: it can help those in need, it can convey artistic content, it is democratic, sparkling, clear, and translucent like crystal clear water. But, on the other hand, it generates problems, anxieties and is vulnerable. It is a dictator, cruel phishing, secretly voyeur, a dangerous scammer who exploits the naivety of users."
Watch the NFT version: HERE
OM Bori: 3267 Footsteps
'I trace my quotidian commute between my home, my school and my grandmother’s place in the city of Budapest by way of an algorithm for stereoscopic street imaging. This form of datafied subjectivity is contrasted with a three-part interview I conducted with denizens of a bar about stories relating to their lives and places in Budapest.'
Watch the NFT version: HERE
Hamza kirbas: DOmination Mechanism
It is a photograph documenting the pressures of the nominal laws of nature, which reveal the production mechanism of the symbolic power, which has suddenly revealed the anthological accomplices of the society. An example of this photograph could be that Festus Okey, who entered the Beyoğlu police station, used it as evidence to show that he had been wounded at the police station and could provide this opportunity to invalidate the domination mechanisms by displaying them.
Watch the NFT version: HERE
Márk martinkó: pl000101nt
"In my art practice, I mainly deal with conceptual photography, videography, and mixed media installations. My artworks are built around a core concept that reflects on the nature of human thinking and its impact on the environment.
Most of my projects have been inspired by artificial spaces, both real and virtual, and influenced by science fiction culture. I am also interested in researching transmediality, data visualization, and exploring new technologies."
Watch the NFT version: HERE
eirini sourgiadaki: The Medicals
"Named after the child god of recovery in Greek mythology, the work brings medical imaging into blue skies and meditative ripple movement. A moving image of medicine, arts, magic, and healing states a connection between the body's anatomy and stories that survive through the centuries, between mortality and the divine. It belongs to a wider body of medical imaging animation works, but each stands individually. The work deals with ruptures in common dualities."
Watch the NFT version: HERE
veronika szendro: UNDERWATER
“I plunge into a dark space. My body is drifted by the streams. I am groping in the dark. This is how we are ‘swimming’ through our life without knowing where we are coming from and where we are going to.”
Watch the NFT version: HERE
zoltán vadászi: 1/0, CT SCAnned air
"In the project, I indirectly use medical imaging modalities (CT, MRI, US) by scanning abstract or pre-defined physically not presented air entities in 3D, functioning as objective reality fragments. These dynamically changing objects reflect the superposition as everything is continuously changing during the scan process."
Watch the NFT version: HERE