Windprints

Windprints

Installation, mixed media, Clisson, France, 2011

In collaboration with Bence Samu, Hungarian artist (http://www.binaura.net/bnc)

I spent two months in the villa ‘Garenne Lemot’ in Clisson, a little town in France. There is a vast and

astonishing park around the villa with full of ancient trees. In the middle of June the leaves began to

fall. The gardener explained me that in the last couple of years ‘the autumn’ started much earlier as the

trees are drying out, because of the climate change. For this landart and installation project I marked the

leaves before their fall around the park with red silk ribbons. Using a camera and a computer through

the exhibition space’s windows – in a collaboration with Bence Samu, Budapest-based new media artist

- we detected the ribbons’ movements in the wind. In a live connection with the garden, the computer

projected thin, black lines on the walls of the exhibition space. The software reacted to the ribbons only

when they were moving and projected the lines to draw the connections  between the marked leaves

outside. In the final result, I found really interesting not only the live mapping of the leaves momentary

location but also the empty spaces within the projection when the wind stopped blowing and the walls

stayed white.

Wind-prints

1 % – Integration des Arts à L’Architecture, Théâtre Les Deux Mondes

1 % – Integration des Arts à L’Architecture, Théâtre Les Deux Mondes

Public Art Installation, mixed media, Montréal, QC, Canada, 2011

In collaboration with Jerome Fortin, Canadian artist (http://jeromefortin.com/)

Jerome Fortin, Montréal-based sculptor asked me for a collaboration in a public art commission for the

Theatre Les Deux Mondes (http://www.lesdeuxmondes.com/en/) in Montréal. According to the strict

rules of making public art projects, we got a specific request from the theatre with possible size and

location, we also needed to consider the permanency of the piece and the weather conditions to find

the best material. To start creating ideas we made a research about the theatre and we got to know that

the place was founded recently as a union of 5 different companies who decided to move altogether.

Finally we had the idea to create an art piece which depicts the daily life of the theatres and also

reflects on the process of their unification. We collected scripts, story boards, architectural plans from

the last 15 years what we found in each theatre and folded the papers altogether as one origami chain.

This visualization includes all the contents which could give a nice overview of the theatres: histories,

workshops, spectacles, maps of travellings and a whole bunch of images and publications. This simple

abstractation of the founded information, the process of folding together their archives finally creates

an unexpected relations between their memories. We blew up the visualization to a 2 x 5,5 meter high,

thin aluminium curtain – a curtain as a symbol which opens a new dimension for the spectator, the

border between the ordinary and the special world – and cut with water-jet the folded pattern on it. We

suspended the piece next to the entrance, in front of a window which gives constant light from behind

through this lace surface.

k_m_IMG_2178_cck_m_IMG_2180k_m_IMG_2187

‘Ecce homo’- Meeting my father once again

‘Ecce homo’- Meeting my father once again

Installation, mixed media (Photo prints and book), Montréal, Canada, 2011

http://gyorgyigalik.com/doc/Ecce_Homo_Meeting_my_father_once_again.pdf

My father passed away years ago, when he just turned 50. We didn’t have a good relationship. He was

an alcoholic. Years and years I felt continuous anger for him, that I needed to leave behind. I built

a new ‘father system’ for myself to be capable to accept his life and death. While I was cleaning up

his apartment I found many pictures of him and the family. I started to gather these photographs and

write titles below them. I started to write kind of a ’diary from heaven’ on behalf of him. The titles

became little poems similar to Japanese Haikus. Not beyond the formal requirements of Haiku writing

(a traditional form of Japanese poetry, is a short verse of 17 syllables in three metrical sections (lines) of

5-7-5 syllables),  rather in the sense of the fundamental characteristic of the classic seventeenth-century

Japanese Zen Haikus. A compact yet profound and evocative form, haiku gives an objective, suggestive,

pithy and fleeting picture of its subject. The aim is to point out a fact, preferably a daily life fragment

or moment. The gesture in these poems does not aim for anything particular. Regarding to the content,

there is no judgement in them, no passion, no enthusiasm, or anger either, the subjects just exist only

on their own way. What is said is important but what is unsaid may be more important. I am interested

in the perception of the ‘negative spaces’, in the breaks between the texts. I had been working on this

project for almost a year when in my eyes I began to see my father in a different light. Now I always try

to remind myself that once he was just like me: a young person with lots of dreams. Like all of us, as a

child he had the dream that he could become someone special. He made his own decisions but he also

had to assume their consequences. To show our family life through this simplicity and total sincerity,

my aim was to give an universal human value for a really intimate story. I tried to explore bravely and

with impunity the border of self-therapy, intimacy and the state or quality of being. When I decided to

organize this exhibition, someone asked me where he could find my father on Google. He supposed if

I did an exhibition for my father, it should mean he was famous. I found that question really amusing.

I told him that he was not on Google at all. He was not more than what he was. An ordinary man (Ecce

homo = Behold the man). By visiting the exhibition, the public can take fragments of his tragic story,

and through my text they will get to know him better, just like I did. I hope through my work I helped

him to get closer to become special, even if for a moment…

001_EcceHomo_Meetingmyfatheronceagain

Sine wave through my grandma’s jars

Sine wave through my grandma’s jars

Installation, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2010

Once I went up the staircase to see my grandma’s old attic. During the war, she had to learn to take care

of the food and her objects. Even after 60 years that the war ended she still gathered all the stuffs she

found, and she piled up kilos of sugar and flour, always being ready for the tough times. The old attic

depicted her memory of war. I found hundreds of empty jars which she collected to conserve the tomatos

and jam she made from what she had in her garden. Above me there was a hole on the roof and while I

was standing there the sun was starting to shine through the jars and gave a twinkling light around the

walls. I found staring at that phenomenon was really peaceful. In this installation I tried to recreate that

sense. I used a simple sine wave which I generated by a bisected, old speaker, with a simple laser light

glu gunned on it, and I made the whole structure move on an orbit path, back and forth. Before the sine

wave reached the wall I installed the jars in the way of it, which broke the wave into parts. The laser on

the moving structure through the jars created the same twinkling phenomena all around the walls in the

dark space.

Laser_light_through_the_jars_of_my_grandma

Landart– water-jet from another dimension, mixed media

Landart – Water-jet from another dimension

Installation, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2006

Once when I was walking in the forest, a fleshy raindrop fell down on my skin. What would happen if

during having coffee or while walking in the forest, suddenly some water started to splash from a point

unexpectedly right next to our head? What if another dimension was worn through like some ragged

trousers and a piece of it filtered through into our world? The photo documentation of this mixed media

installation tries to arrest this fictitious moment. I bought a mirror, drilled a hole in it and poured some

water into the hole from behind, while I zoomed onto the mirror and took a picture about the reflection

of the mirror with the splashing water and its reflection…

6

5

kicsi_werk_landart02

kicsi_werk_landart01

Experiments in Social Orthodontics, master thesis project

Experiments in Social Orthodontics, Master’s thesis project, Non-linear social project

Non-linear video map with 45 video extracts of interview series (in Hungarian), Installation, Budapest,

Hungary, 2009

http://gyorgyigalik.com/doc/gyorgyigalik_diploma_EN.pdf

(Special thanks to Prezi http://prezi.com/)

My practical-based diploma project (Social teeth-straightening) wants to call attention to the correct

use of the escalator – a social agreement which exists in all big cities, but is ignored in Hungary. The

escalator is a public place that we all use every day. In every big city of the world: London, Paris,

Rome, Tokyo, Moscow people generally queue up on it behind each other in order to make place for

those who are in a hurry. My work presents the questions I’ve had during long months of using the

escalators in Budapest, and the answers given by various people and experts (sociologists, psychologists,

mathematicians, priests, politicians, etc.) that I have interviewed. I built a non-linear, online video map

and a newly designed interface built up from a 45 extracts of interview series about the Hungarian

society and mentality: sense of community, tolerance, generosity, solidarity. The project shows how

a small step – that we DON’T take – can describe the attitude of a nation.  The online video map was

created in a software called ‘Prezi’. The program is built up with a unique design and new technological

solutions created especially for this project. I chose ‘Prezi’ software and the non-linear map as the means

of visualization because for me this combined solution reflects most adequately the diverging lines of

thought that I followed during my work. As my thoughts also started to spread out from one idea and

ended up in many different questions – especially about the situation in Hungary – I tried to depict the

same, diverse paths in the design of the final structure. When the mouse is moved to a video, a window

pops up with a question that the video is about to answer. By clicking on certain points on the video

map, 45 short films give us a general image about the present psychological, physical and social state of

Hungary. It is not only about stating certain facts, but we also try to suggest solutions to the problems

that come up. On the video map we can discover all the information in a path as we would like it. But

it is also possible to follow my project by an automatically set path, which could seem similar to a

documentary film trailer that emphasizes and summarizes the essence of my diploma work in a concise

way.

Print

kicsi_kisebb_emailvis-090611-01

Nighmo, Kitchen Budapest

kicsi_kicsi_Img0163

kicsi_kicsi_Img0175

Nighmo (with original name Home Moonlight) is a night-light object which starts to operate when it detects motion in the room, and makes just little light, enough to sense the space, furniture, and things around in the room.

If you have several nighmos placed in different parts of the flat, the pleasant light follows the direction of your movement, and slowly fades out when movement ceases in the space. This light is weak enough not to disturb sleepers in the room.

Nighmo has no other function in daytime than beeing a nice organic object in the flat. When the daylight goes off, nighmo lamps switch on automatically with a smooth fade-in.

Participating researchers

Tamas Bagi, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, David Lakatos, Melinda Sipos, Andras Szalai, Gyorgyi Galik

Read more

http://nighmo.com/

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/home_moonlight


Edith and cigarettes, video

Edith and cigarettes – It’s been a nice day!

Video, Budapest, Hungary, 2009

http://vimeo.com/7978983

Everyone has some kind of passion, smoking cigarettes is one of them. It’s not just the taste of tobacco, but all the related rituals of striking a match, the first drag with the morning coffee, the way we hold it – all these make us dependent. Cigarettes become part of our everyday life unnoticed. After a while one cannot be occupied with anything for a longer period of time as every activity has to be interrupted by a „cigarette break”: we smoke while reading a book, talking with friends, working and even eating. The video is searching for the answer to this relationship: how cigarettes subtly take control of our everyday lives…

Reservoir of Seasons, KIBU

Reservoir of seasons, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project

Installation, Budapest, Hungary, 2008

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/522

Reservoir of Seasons, our microecosystem is not about presenting phenomena which many people will

never experience, like dying polar bears, melting icebergs or the cooling of the Gulf Stream, but about

the subtle changes we experience every day, it is an experimental project to show how we loose our

springs and falls…Other researchers: Gina Haraszti, Marton Juhasz, John Nussey

305os_reservoir

My observation system, video

My observation system…

Video,  Budapest, Hungary, 2009

http://vimeo.com/7980951

This video reflects upon the never-ending process of constructions in my city. It presents the phenomenon

when the view from a window suddenly disappears. I have been looking at the sunrise above the front

hills for years, when a man bought all the land in front of our house and built an even higher building by

taking away my whole view. From now on, I can only watch the guy in the opposite flat who is about to

take a shower…How our surroundings change our habits?

Footprinting, KiBu

Footprinting, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project,

Installation, mixed media, Helsinki, Finland, 2008

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/footprinting_pixelache

A comparing account of a journey performed in two different ways, as for our load on the environment:

fuel consumption, air pollution and waste production. The unit of this account is the “ecological

footprint”. Some researchers of Kitchen Budapest traveled the distance between Budapest and Helsinki

in mid-March. Some arrived in the festival Pixelache Helsinki 2008 by plane, others by minibus. On

the way they were documenting their environmental expenses, by taking pictures and making notes. For

the birthday exhibition of Kitchen Budapest the project is summarized in a presentation. One of the key

issues of the festival Pixelache Helsinki 2008 was environmental awareness, about which a seminar called

“Traveling Without Moving” was given. As an exhibitioner Kitchen Budapest respected this endeavor.

The researchers followed the ecological load of the journey traveled on two routes, then among other

projects of KIBU, presented it in the festival. A huge poster to see and read, about a personal, footprinting

travel report of Kitchen Budapest, accompanied by technical details and references. Map based poster,

interesting details, pictures and pieces of information of specific points of the route highlighted. Next to

it additional background literature of the meaning, calculation of ecological footprint, and what it has to

do with reality, with some relating expressions, such as: carbon footprint, specific CO2-emissions…Other

researchers: Tamas Bagi, Gina Haraszti, Gyogyi Galik, Szonja Kadar, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Agoston

Nagy, Peter Nemeth, Gabor Papp, Bence Samu, Melinda Sipos, Andras Szalai

kicsi_benzinkut_m

Arbour Light, KiBu

kicsi_kicsi_lugas_szines_oldal1a_1

kicsi_kicsi_P1110494_ww

Arbour light, an intelligent lighting system can reproduce the visual atmosphere of natural phenomena. It recreates the ambient atmosphere rather than a photographic image, hence it extends communication into non intrusive modalities.

Participating researchers

Melinda Sipos, Peter Nemeth, Tamas Bagi, Aron Horvath, Kadar Szonja, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Gabor Papp, Gyorgyi Galik

Read more

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/302

Metamorphosis, photo

Blanka

2

3

Blanka and Kati

6

Kati

7

8

Kati and Anna

92.1

Anna

91

92

Kati and Anna

93

Anna and Blanka

94

Experimental photo

Young girls like to imitate media celebrities and tend to consider what they see on TV and on the cover of magazines as reality. This creates many inhibitions and pain in them as they can never reach the desired perfection. We are the way we are even if we are constantly struggling against it. Some are afraid to be distinguished from the crowd, others want to be different and turn to extremes. Would we be happier if we could just slip into anybody’s skin? Maybe even that wouldn’t be enough for us. What if we could stay ourselves a little, but could also take some things that we like over from others?

Background:

This is an experimental photo series, in which I asked three of my classmates –Blanka, Kati and Panni – to sit for me to take their portraits.

I took their photos to pieces in order to create new women from them. I didn’t want to have some chaotic collages of faces as a result but I tried to aim at some kind of perfection where even I no longer could tell which portrait is real and which one not. Even I was startled to find how real these faces became even though they never existed only as a result of my work.

Sensitive Wheat, KiBu

Sensitive wheat, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project,

Landart, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2008

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/473

In this project we make patterns by using plants as they were photographic materials. When we keep

wheat under a black tent, the plant starts to grow in yellow color. When the wheat gets some light, it

starts to grow in green color. We used a black space to grow a yellow wheat field, and we used masked

projectors shining on some parts of the wheat to create different green images, patterns in the field…

Other researchers: Zsolt Korai, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs

kicsi_kicsi_wheat_1261234

Friedrich and I, mixed media

1

2

5

4

6

Mixed media

Everyone who knows the works of Caspar David Friedrich is aware that he depicted his musing figures from behind. In this experimental work, I decided to bring his iconic figure and romantic landscapes into new situations, mixing them with contemporary elements.

Searching for my grandma, video

Searching for my grandma…

Video, Budapest, Hungary, 2007

http://vimeo.com/7981131

In this video I recalled my memories about my grandma who passed away in 2006. Whatever has

remained of her? Movements and gestures mostly. Feelings, colors, pictures of my childhood as she

used to hoe and water the garden. The work was commissioned by Iris Disse and David Höner for

completing their Radio Play “Der Tod tanzt mit” performed at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.

Fishing net, mixed media

latv1

latv2

latv3

latv4

latv5

latv6

Mixed media, maquette

I wanted to experiment whether I am capable of imitating the depth of the sea and to tell an underwater story with the help of only a few things – an aquarium, some colored water, some wax, some tinfoil and a hair-net.

I used the colors and atmosphere of some photos I took during a seaside journey a long time ago as a starting point. My brother was the model of whom I took a photo while he was dry, then I replaced him into the world of the maquette with the help of a software. The scene was built upon a very silly story, in which a swimmer gets entangled in a fishnet and drowns.

Sheep Decide, KiBu

Sheep Decide, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project,

Landart, Concept of a prospective project, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2008

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/474

We have a new way of research what we would like to realize later on. There are some kind of grass

which sheep like and which they do not like. If we set a field by mixing two different hayseeds, we get

a latent picture or pattern and sheep will make it visible while they eat…Other researchers: Tamas Bagi,

Andras Fischer, Zsolt Korai, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Melinda Sipos

kicsi_sokbirek_headerkep

Scroll Muscle, KiBu

Scroll-muscle

Installation, Budapest, Hungary 2008

We spend hours on the computer with reading. In this installation my aim was to convert the process

of scrolling with the computer mouse wheel to train my muscles. When we want to see the page of a

website, we have to use the dumbbell. Each time when we raise up and down the dumbbell, the page

scrolls down with one step, step by step…Other researchers: Andras Szalai, Gabor Papp

D_scroll01_kicsi

Landprint, KiBu

Landprint, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/landprint

The aim of the Landprint project is to reproduce subtle patterns and photos by combining various species of plants with programmed robotics. Plants and flowers that spawn seem to make continuous patterns with their various colours and shades seen from a distance. With the use of programmed robotics for the planting and cutting of plants, we can manipulate the evolving patterns, to render photo-like, delicate images. Other researchers: Tamas Bagi, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Maxigas, Melinda Sipos, Andras Szalai, Gyorgyi Galik

kicsi_utolso_osszeszereles


Breath Fairies, KiBu

Breath Fairies, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project

Installation, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2007

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/488

When we are blowing into the mouth of the ‘Breath Fairies’ machine, steam comes up and creates a little

curtain in front of our eyes. After the projector senses the blowing, it starts to project a little fairy on

the steam. As the steam evaporates slowly, the fairy flies away with it. Thousands of little fairies were

generated for the project…Other researchers: Gabor Papp, Melinda Sipos, Peter Nemeth, Anita Pozna,

Adam Somlai-Fischer, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Milan Korsos, Tamas Bagi

kangy08

kangy10

Musical Kitchen, KiBu

Musical Kitchen, ‘Kitchen Budapest’ research project

Installation, mixed media, Budapest, Hungary, 2007

http://kitchenbudapest.hu/en/node/204

The kitchen of KiBu comes alive on the opening day of the lab featuring musical percolators, sighing carrots, automatic wooden spoons and a laser light show with icicles. The kitchen is where the fun happens, or at least where something is always being brewed: something is always prepared in the pot, fresh coffee is made and it is always something interesting to be found in the fridge. However, at our place everything is a little bit different. The percolator gives the beat, vegetables are sighing when we pull them out of the ground. Ice wonders are illuminating the fridge and our spice seeds are about to germinate soon. These experiments show that the researchers of KiBu always adapt and transform objects of their environment in a different way. Now they created some kind of a ’smart kitchen’ which is playfully presents their way of thinking about cook-ware. Most of the smart kitchens are focused on comfortability and function. But in homes kitchen is the territory of family life and community life, the place for cooking, the meals for cultural reciprocity (actually people globalize by culinary experiences). These experiments may help understand the real cultural needs of a smart home. Other researchers: Tamas Bagi, Szilvia Drescher, Balazs Kovacs, Zoltan Csik-Kovacs, Melinda Sipos, Lidija Skenderovic, Gabor Papp, Gyorgyi Galik

konyhakep_kicsi