General statement about my work:

I think that the entire world at the moment is in some kind of interim state. The very real threat to human existence from climate change and environmental destruction, together with the fact that the dominating economic theory of capitalism is reaching the end of its potential and growth curve, has thrown humankind into a state of unconscious waiting. There is an underlying vague feeling that something is near its end, but we don’t know yet what will replace it and how it will do so. The popularity of disaster and end-of-the-world films is just a small indicator of this.

I believe that we need a new world order, a new ideology based on sustainability and human needs. How exactly that could look like, I don’t know.

My work deals with the gray area between reality and fiction, the space where fiction becomes a blueprint for reality and where reality is often more absurd and coincidental than fiction. In this context, I explore the position of the individual in relationship to society and its grand narratives: myths, ideologies or more everyday narrative structures such as TV shows, film plots and genres, all provide patterns of meaning that consciously or unconsciously influence the way we understand ourselves and the world.

By openly playing around with artifice and realism, I expose the world that we see as everyday reality, as part fiction.

But I don’t take apart, I am not interested in deconstruction of reality as such. I am more interested in taking elements of this fiction and by putting them together in a new way, fiction also creates reality.

Of particular importance in this respect are the genres of science fiction and disaster films. Science fiction, as the genre, which uses the freedom of imagination that imagining the future offers, uses future scenarios to comment on the present. This real present is also the point of reference for my work, which is always based on extensive research. I do not invent, I do not make up. I only use what exists already and make something new out of it that questions this huge entity we call reality.

One of my main interests in this context is extent to which an individual can maybe escape and hide from the events he or she has no power over, or whether that possibility is just an illusion. The absurd and coincidental nature of human existence

My work incorporates installation, video and painting.  My installations, in particular, are deliberately temporary, provisional and site-specific constructions that work as a basis for video work, research or painting. The individual elements of my practice – video installation, painting – are rarely meant to work on their own, I usually combine them in one piece of work. My installations have something of film or theatre sets and often function as such: videos are filmed in them, paintings are displayed in them or function as backdrops to the installation.  A more traditionally sculptural installation is accompanied by sound.

Specific proposal for Pécs:

The form of the shelter represents the end of something, of that which existed beforehand; it represents a new, tentative beginning. Nothing is set in stone yet, literally. A shelter also offers little protection, it can be a symbol of loss and uncertainty, but it also offers the freedom of thinking through possibilities.

My shelters tend to be whimsical at best, they are a warning about the possibility that survival may only be short-lived and only for a few lucky(?) ones. Nevertheless, they also represent my stubborn refusal to give up hope, to try to keep a sense of humour.

In Pecs, I propose to create an installation that incorporates found objects, sculpture, paintings and video. These I would combine in order to create a fictitious future ‘civilization’. Just like Angela Carter’s people in her novel ‘Heroes and Villains’ have built new societies on the ruins of old ones, like survivors in a post-apocalyptic world would have to create a new normality for themselves, complete with everyday environment and objects, new rituals and myths, possibly new laws of science, I will create a new reality in the space.

I will use the space itself and objects/materials found within and in the vicinity as a starting point that I elaborate on and extend with more planned and carefully crafted elements. Out of all these I will construct a shelter in one of the empty shops. This shop should have a large window onto the street.

There I will pretend that an unspecified global disastrous event has happened and our present society has disappeared. I will create a new fictitious future and develop new rituals, myths, histories and economic theories, and use of urban space. The city space would be at the very center of this.

Paintings, for example, will represent a new future history. The events shown in these paintings will give hints to the passing public as to what happened that made me build this shelter. They could be new sacred objects. A webcam diary could talk about daily issues. For the video part of the work, I want to film Pécs when it is empty, as well as film myself in front of a green screen, and then superimpose myself into a deserted city of Pécs.

I would put white material up in one part of the window. Whenever a webcam or video track is finished, they will be displayed on this temporary screen. Paintings will be shown within the shelter structure and as soon as another painting is finished it will be added to the display. Slowly the work will grow, in front of the eyes of the people of Pécs who are welcome to enter the shop and have a look around at regular times.

I will contact scholars in the fields of economics, ecology and political science at the university of Pécs, in order to organize lectures in the space on topics to do with my project: are there alternatives now to neo-capitalism? Are there environmental policies that could stop climate change? What can the individual do?