W setup? (ignore my bird) – Kovács Máté és Tihanyi Áron duó kiállítása

Vilém Flusser describes the development of communication technologies as a shift toward ever greater abstraction: starting from direct experience of nature, first images, then written signs, and finally the logical structures of digital systems transformed the representation of reality. At the same time, digitality does not signify a state of detachment from matter; its reality is deeply embedded in materiality—in servers, rare-earth metals, physical bodies and spaces, and in the material infrastructure of bodily presence and intellectual labor—within which the degree of access becomes a formative factor of social positions and hierarchical relations.

According to Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This statement refers not only to the level of technological development, but also to a transformation in the relationship between the structures of perception and operation that accompany it. Yet the “magical” feel of technology does not arise solely from this: the structural and infrastructural concealment of its operating mechanisms also plays a decisive role.

In the works of the duo opening the gallery space, the broadly constructed interface appears not merely as a user surface, but as an assemblage of machine bodies, shells, coverings, and carriers. The transformations of these different layers of concealment reflect the cultural relations produced by contemporary digital technological systems.

While Kovács Máté’s Sehnsucht und Weltschmerz installation, in a techno-romantic light, evokes a longing for the promise of a digital network that would restore the ideal unity of human community and the world, Tihanyi Áron dissolves the distance between the alienation produced by the digital sphere and the remoteness of the hidden structures operating behind the apparent closeness of technological systems by creating the conditions for active participatory presence, entry into the system, and the possibility of intervention.

Join us for the opening of our very first exhibition of PATIKA - an evening that also inaugurates the space! There will be music, food, drinks, and plenty of time to meet, talk, and celebrate together. Everyone’s welcome.