installed at the Headquarters of the Union of Iron and Metal Workers
Budapest
The corridors of a uncanny building are made of soft, warm velvet. The interior resembles a
spaceship, mostly as depicted by amateur futurologists in the era of the space race that captured the imagination of pop culture. The paintings are based on 3D renderings, using traditional painting techniques in oil on velvet, framed by inviting wooden wall panels.
The installation is both a representation of our positive aspirations for the future and a nostalgia for the unimaginable future wrapped in the soft cloak of the past. The Headquarters images could be the glossy interior designs of Elon Musk's Martian colonies. The Heart of the Machine paintings, on the other hand, show the chaotic and organic nature of the material flows behind the public face of techno-infrastructure.
The Infrastructure series domesticates and figures technological optimism. In a panelling that evokes the socialist luxury of the 1960s, the spaceship of a scientific-technological vision that fills our lack of vision of the future takes us back to the prosperous optimism of modernity, where we could still dream awake.
photos by: Dávid Bíró
