Kempelen: Man in the Machine (2007) [English/Hungarian]

The catalogue of an exhibition on Bratislava-born 18th-century author, polyhistor and inventor of the chess-player automaton and the speaking machine, Wolfgang von Kempelen, organised by the C3 Foundation and ZKM Karlsruhe, held in Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle, Budapest, on 24 March – 28 May 2007, and curated by József Mélyi and Rita Kálmán.

“The history of the chess-player automaton of Wolfgang von Kempe­len (1734 – 1804) and its legend have engaged artists, scientists and laymen for centuries. Now, more than two hundred years after von Kempelen ’s death, the joint exhibition of C3 Foun­dation and the ZKM in Karlsruhe, setting the two outstanding mecha­nical inventions of the polyhistor – the chess-player automaton and the speaking machine – at the centre, attempts to focus not only on the most en­during memories of his almost unfathomably far-reaching career. Alongside the portrayal of von Kempelen as scientist, engi­neer, artist, showman, civil servant and private individual, the exhibi­tion broadens the picture onto the Court of Maria Theresa and Jo­seph II, the mechanical inventions of the epoch, the invention of the era of invention, the Freemasonry movement, and the Turk- and puppet-mania of the century.

Even though we are separated from von Kempelen ’s world by more than two hundred years, we can still recognise the similarities bet­ween that atmosphere of scientific discoveries constantly out­bidding each other, with technical and technological innovations appearing in the second half of the 18th century, and the multi­fariousness of art forms, and our own present.

The other aim of the exhibition is the elaboration of the history of innovative thinking, and the presentation of elements of technical and conceptual history inspired by von Kempelen and his mecha­nisms. Alongside the historical correlations, the show presents con­temporary media artworks – in part, commissioned specifically for this occasion – that, taking the sphere of thought of von Kempe­len ’s inventions as their point of departure, discover the relationship bet­ween the ideas of the Enlightenment and the questions of the pre­sent day. ” (source)

Edited by József Mélyi, Rita Kálmán, and Edina Nagy
Publisher C3 Foundation, and Műcsarnok, Budapest, 2007
ISBN 9789630620567
112 pages

Exhibition
Exhibition (2)
Publisher

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Martin Šperka (ed.): Computer Graphics in Fine Arts, catalogue (1993) [Slovak/English]

“Original intention of the organizers of this exhibition was to present artists from Central European region: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Austria and Germany. Later, with the help of Milan Adamciak, who contacted us with participants of the Ars Electroncia in Linz and Jan Sekal who lives in Paris, we extended the exhibition from the included works of artists from France, Holland, Switzerland and Great Britain. This is the first exhibition of computer art in Slovakia. We can see here ‘classic’ works of computer art in Czecho-Slovakia, from Zdeňka Čechová, Daniel Fischer, Miroslav Klivař, Jozef Jankovič, world-known pioneer of computer art Vera Molnar (Hungarian living in Paris), and other well known artists. The artifacts exhibited are generated on different computers, with different software (custom or commercial programs), computational methods (from computer painting through image processing, deterministic or stochastic, abstract or real patterns, of Euclidian or fractal geometry) and post-processing (photography of CRT monitor, laser painting, computer luminography, mixed media, or painting on canvas). Artifacts addressing different themes and renderings present a brief review of potential of computer applications in the arts.” (Martin Šperka)

Venues of the travelling exhibition: State Gallery Žilina, Banská Bystrica (December 1992), Médium Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts, Bratislava (January-February 1993), Ján Koniarek Gallery, Trnava (March 1993), State Gallery Benešov near Prague (April 1993).

Exhibiting artists: Gerhard Katterbauer, Peter Kotauczek, N. Nestler, Manfred Wolff-Plottegg, E.M. Porsch, Herwig Turk (AT), Zdeňka Čechová, Miroslav Klivař, Ján Rajlich (CZ), Martha Aitchison, Roy Bowden, Angela Eames, K. Jones (UK), Etienne Delacroix, Dagmar Fedderke, P. Karczewski, Vera Molnar, Ch. Le Francois, Tibor Papp, Leo Scalpel, Jan Sekal (FR), B. Dueker, D. Elbe, Geo Goidaci, Eva Kéky-Magyar, M. Muntenbruch, Günter Schulz, A. Stösser (DE), Apostolis Zolotakis (NL), Svetislav Nikolić (YU), Jan Pamuła, Stanisław Sasak, Wojciech Maria Wójcik (PL), Daniel Fischer, Jozef Jankovič, I. Kažimír, Martin Šperka (SK), Quido Sen (CH).

Počítačová grafika vo výtvarnom umení
Introduction and translation by Martin Šperka
Publisher: Academy of Fine Arts, Bratislava, 1993
8 pages
via Michal Murin

more information (Monoskop wiki)

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László Moholy-Nagy: The Art of Light (2010) [Spanish]

An artist and thinker of astounding energy and ability, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was a true world citizen of the early twentieth century, an ambassador-at-large for Constructivism, Suprematism, Dada and the Bauhaus. He brought the same Constructivist optimism to every medium he tackled, from plexiglass and light sculpture to typography to his photographic experiments in color to his Suprematist canvases, his influential pedagogy at the Bauhaus and at the Institute of Design in Chicago. Moholy-Nagy’s concept of the arts as a totality, his pedagogy and his confidence in the new industrial culture that would level distinctions between art and craft led him into all fields of creative production. The ultimate modernist Renaissance man, Moholy-Nagy was prolific in so many realms that his detractors inevitably charged him with dilettantism. This accusation ignores his very real innovations in photography–for example his photograms–and light sculpture, as well as the fact that the artist’s aims possessed a conceptual unity in their common aspiration to make an “art of light.”

László Moholy-Nagy: The Art of Light presents Moholy-Nagy’s work in all of its glorious unity and diversity. Including more than 200 works, from painting, photography (black and white and color) and photograms to collages, films and graphic design, it emphasizes his greatest years of productivity, from 1922 to the end of his life. The Art of Light is the new definitive volume on this hero of modernism.

László Moholy-Nagy: El Arte de la Luz
Book coordination: Doménico Chiappe, Luisa Lucuix
Editor: Emilio Ruiz Mateo
Publisher: La Fábrica Editorial / Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
ISBN: 8492841257, 9788492841424
264 pages

exhibition (Madrid, 2010)

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