Budapest Art Factory hosts Postmasters 5.0
CONVERSIONS
Curated by Viola Lukacs and Tamas Banovich
GRETCHEN ANDREW
PETER BURR
VUK ĆOSIĆ
DAMJANSKI
EVA DAVIDOVA
GÁBOR KITZINGER
TAMÁS KOMORÓCZKY
JENNIFER & KEVIN McCOY
SÁNDOR SZÁSZ
April 11 – May 17, 2024
Opening reception Thursday, April 11, 7-9 pm
BUDAPEST ART FACTORY
BUDAPEST XI, EPITÉSZ UTCA 20.
Eva Davidova, Horsewoman Appearing Normal (Anamorphic), 2018
“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
Jean-Luc Godard
Organized by Viola Lukacs and Tamas Banovich for Budapest Art Factory Conversions is a second show of Postmasters 5.0 presenting an international group of artists who work in digital media.
Following the recently concluded Distortions, this exhibition revolves around a different aspect of the transformative action: that of changing something from one form to another. Conversion can be a gradual process, like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, or a sudden one, like a bolt of lightning striking. Metaphorically, conversion can be a revelation of new experience. Literally, it often refers to transforming analog or physical data into digital formats. Digital information, defined by binary code and the pixel, differs from its analog counterpart. Conversion in all its forms, serves as a powerful lens through which we can decipher the complexities of our times in a constant dance between the old and the new. As an ever-growing dataflow transforms at an exponential pace, conversion will undoubtedly remain a central metaphor, shaping perception, and bringing a fundamental change to the aesthetic experience.
Art is the ultimate conversion.
Social media posts, news updates, and online trends, each have the potential to alter perspectives or reshape opinions. Just as a filter can transform a photo, it is artists who can convert us into believers. The artists in the show employ a large spectrum of technologies and methods of delivery including generative software, digital animation and 3D modeling, plotters, ASCII videos, prints, NFTs, and AI collaborations.
(Hungarian translation below)
GRETCHEN ANDREWS
Premiering in this exhibition Facetune Portraits, 2024 are Gretchen Andrews’ new series of works that can be described as “Canvas Battles with AI & Algorithms.” Facetuning and Bodytuning are AI-enabled, algorithmically driven ways to make yourself look more appealing on social media. Such apps and filters are widely used on Instagram, TikTok, and even via Zoom’s “Touch up my appearance” feature. Andrews uses custom robotics to physically apply popular AI algorithms onto oil paintings.The portraits (oil prints on canvas) are defaced with a paint scrubbing plotter that applies “beautifying” filters to the image. There is a tension between who you are and who today’s society says you should be. These are portraits of that tension. What happens when the digital manipulation of Face Tuning collides with the physical world?
PETER BURR
Peter Burr’s Dirtscraper, 2018 simulates an underground structure whose ‘smart architecture’ is overseen by artificial intelligences — spatial and social designers that observe, learn, and make changes to the system. Unaware of the control exerted by these entities, residents move through spaces that reflect varied economies and class hierarchies. Periodically this system will interject one of 48 cinematic interludes that reveal different facets of life in this decaying arcology.
Drop City, 2019 is a portrait of a computer desktop community. It takes its name from the first rural hippy commune in America, a settlement in southern Colorado that formed in 1965 constructed of discarded junk, salvaged car tops, and other detritus fashioned into inventive living structures. A decade later Drop City was completely abandoned. Nothing is left of it today. The film was commissioned by Daata Editions.
VUK ĆOSIĆ
Influential, first generation net artist Vuk Ćosić will present Star Trek, 1998 a digital animation NFT where a sequence from the iconic TV series is converted into ASCII, the format he pioneered.
ASCII initiative (www.vuk.org/ascii/aae.html) is a systematic program of translating media content from one obsolete format into another.
These projects remind us that since at least the 1960s the operation of media translation has been at the core of our culture. Films transferred to video; video transferred from one video format to another; video transferred to digital data; digital data transferred from one format to another: from floppy disks to Jaz drives, from CD-ROMs to DVDs; and so on, indefinitely.
The history of ASCII code compresses a number of technological and conceptual developments which lead to (but I am sure will not stop at) a modern digital computers: cryptography, real-time communication, communication networks… By juxtaposing this code with the history of cinema, Ćosić accomplishes what can be called an artistic compression: it brings together many key issues of computer culture and new media art together in one rich and elegant project.
Lev Manovich
DAMJANSKI
The Dress, the wind and me, 2024 was filmed during the pandemic. It was shot at the same Manhattan location as the original Marilyn Monroe scene with the artist himself assuming the role of Marilyn wearing the iconic white dress. The air blowing up Marilyn’s dress is replaced by the computer fans affecting Damjanski’s movements to keep control of the garment. The interdependency of URL and IRL and how they impact one another exposes yet another instance of creating of online personas and identities.
EVA DAVIDOVA
Eva Davidova’s Global Mode > Horsewoman Appearing Normal, 2015-2020, a well known 3D modeled animated image appears dematerialized on a holofan and as an anamorphic vinyl print on the floor. Global Mode takes the object of desire and speculative crypto aesthetic to make an image of the ecological and social disaster that we seem to have programmed – setting ourselves up for extinction.
GÁBOR KITZINGER
In NEON, 2011, Gábor Kitzinger animates abstract geometric forms of neon colored palette creating a visual sensory experience. A member of Hungarian visual studio, Glowing Bulbs since 2006, Kitzinger, well known video and media artist, started VJ-ing in the early 2000’s. Together with Glowing Bulbs they created several large scale architectural mappings and did numerous performances around the globe. For his solo video art, music videos and sound-reactive A/V shows Kitzinger makes abstract, radiant 3D animations often transformed into esthetically similar sculptures and paintings.
TAMÁS KOMORÓCZKY
Like the balmy breeze from the tropics Tamás Komoróczky’s #Bird Land #Island Yodel #Joy Tempo #Bones&Flowers #Common Oblivion, 2021 gently peels multiple layers of simulation to reveal the constructed armature woven of melancholic Hawaiian daydreaming. Seductive words flow, roses bloom, music sways, pastel hues calm the eye…………we don’t know if he really means any of it. Born in 1963, the veteran media artist Komoróczky is known for ephemeral installations and digital videos where poetry, philosophy, images and music form poignant visual essays.
JENNIFER & KEVIN McCOY
Quantum Leap, 2021 is a generative code-based NFT project inspired by Kevin McCoy’s 2014 work Quantum, the very first artwork tokenized on a blockchain. The word ‘quantum’ alludes to the attempt in theoretical physics to develop a theory of the first phases of the universe. The generative, iterative process is emulated in the structure of Quantum Leap which evolves to become more complex, changing states, and spinning off new versions of itself.
For this project, several levels of code-based systems interact. Visually, each token of the Quantum Leap series produces a mandala that changes and evolves inspired by the life cycle colors of the stars (which shift colors as they age) and becomes more circular as the code-generated images mature.
SÁNDOR SZÁSZ
Sandor Szasz’s Source, 2024, an AI generated video, is the manifestation of a melancholic resistance, where scientific and technological experimentation affects post-humans immersed in unfamiliar matrix. The mental images of a self-destructive Promethean force, the mysterious atmosphere of survival is created by faceless people, asking the fundamental question: what have we become, how did we get to this point. In his works, Szász explores the concepts of identity, perception and power structures within the social fabric, which he constantly looks at from a new and different perspective and environment.
POSTMASTERS GALLERY was founded by Magda Sawon and Tamas Banovich in New York’s East Village in December 1984. In 1989, the gallery moved to Soho, then again to Chelsea in 1998. In 2013, Postmasters opened its new space in Tribeca, the gallery’s home for the next ten years. In August 2022 and Postmasters entered a new nomadic model of a roving gallery.
As Postmasters 5.0, we find locations to fit a particular exhibition or event in New York City and beyond.
In the course of almost forty years, Postmasters has represented and exhibited young and established artists who work across a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, digital, installation, photography and NFTs. Postmasters actively seeks new forms of creative expression and exhibits them in the context of traditional and nontraditional formats alike. The artworks are largely content oriented, conceptually based and – most importantly – reflective of our time.
Extensive archives of all exhibitions since 1999 are available online at www.postmastersart.com
Conversions
kurátorok: Banovich Tamás és Lukacs Viola
2024. április 11. – 2024. május 17.
Megnyitó: április 11., csütörtök, 19-21 óra
Nem az a lényeg, hogy honnan veszed a dolgokat – hanem az, hogy mire használod őket.
Jean-Luc Godard
A Postmasters 5.0 második megjelenése a Budapest Art Factoryben, Conversions, egy nemzetközi művészeket felvonultató újmédia kiállítás Banovich Tamás és Lukács Viola rendezésében.
A nemrég zárult Distortions után ez a kiállítás egy másik transzformatív esemény vonatkozásait járja körül: az átváltoztatás lényegét egyik formából vagy állapotból a másikba. Az átalakulás lehet lassú folyamat, ahogyan egy hernyó pillangóvá változik, vagy hirtelen, mint egy villámcsapás. Metaforikusan, az átlényegülés egy új állapot, élmény kinyilatkoztatása. Az információs technológia területein a konverzió, gyakran utal az analóg vagy fizikai adatok digitális formátumba történő átváltására. A digitális információ, melyet a bináris kód és vizuálisan a pixel határoz meg, eltér analóg megfelelőjétől. A konverzió, mint jelenség, gyakran láthatatlan, de bizonyított formájában, segít megfejteni korunk bonyolultságait, az új és régi közti folyamatos kölcsönhatását. Ahogy az adatáramlás egyre növekvő ütemben halmozódik, a konverzió kétségtelenül a komplex folyamat azon momentuma, amely formálja érzékelésünket, és alapvető változást hoz létre az esztétikai élményben.
A művészet a végső konverzió.
A közösségi média bejegyzései, hírei és online trendjei képesek nézőpontokat és véleményeket formálni. Azonban a művészet ereje az, ami megmutatja az információ és az azt közvetítő technológiák valódi természetét. A kiállításon részt vevő művészek taktikus módszereket és változatos technológiai eszközöket alkalmaznak, beleértve a generatív szoftvereket, a digitális animációt, a játékmotorokat, a 3D modellezést, a plottereket, az ASCII videókat, a nyomatokat, az NFT-ket és az AI-kollaborációt.
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