Reading in Absence

Searching for others has been a known human proclivity since the beginning of time. Today, thanks to the possibilities afforded by the internet as well as other forms and tools of surveillance the “anonymous” investigation of others has gained a different meaning. The title of the exhibition describes the scenario where getting to know the “object of investigation” does not necessarily require that we meet that person or share the same physical space with him or her.

The users/searchers can put on new “digital masques” which allows them to transform their identity as they see fit; the participants can take on a real, non-physical, alternate persona.

The image of the sought person, self or persona is formulated with the aid of different bits of information, and the remaining gaps are filled in by imagination.

The lines between the real and the imaginary blur and occasionally shift depending on the various spaces, sites and changing roles. The sociological/psychological approach to this theme is associated with an artistic problematic, which can be characterised by a so-called searching attitude as well as a related phenomenon apparent in the fine arts – the ceaseless alterations of and search for the boundaries of the self.

The exhibition will engage the various forms of expression and approaches associated with this problematic. We are expecting to receive completed works or project plans, which feature the act of searching as a creative method or examine the various forms of searching as existing sociological and psychological phenomena in connection with the ever-changing roles of the individual and with the mapping of the boundaries of the self as formulated in the relationships of the subjects (searching subject and searched object) [1]: the personal; the pseudo-personal; the different social spaces; the virtual plane.

The exhibition will aim neither to provide a critical introduction of surveillance methods and modes (dangers) of social control, nor to deal with the sexually loaded concepts of “gaze” and “voyeurism.” Rather, my interest is in those approaches which focus on the activity of (re)searching in conjunction with collecting and processing information and see it more as a process, a method of creating.

Pressetext

Reading in Absence
Kurator: Eszter Lazar

mit Ricarda Denzer, Andreas Fogarasi, Ferenc Grof, Zsolt Keserue, Miha Knific, Adam Kokesch, Gergely Laszlo / Peter Rakosi, Adam Lendvai, Marko Maetämm, Andras Ravasz, Pal Szacsva Y, Zsofia Varadi