ZKM│Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnlologie, Karlsruhe
28 January 2012 – 19 Aug 2012
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, Berlin
27 October 2011 – 1 January 2012
Curators of the exhibition: Piotr Krajewski (WRO Art Center, Wrocław) and Miklós Peternák (C³ Foundation, Budapest)
Initiative, concept: Siegfried Zielinski (Universität der Künste, Berlin)
The event series was a parallel presentation of the oeuvre of "two, somewhat forgotten, but outstanding artists" (as one curator put it), initiated by the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. The exhibition was first presented in Berlin, then in Karlsruhe, later in Wrocław, and finally in Budapest. Although Zbigniew Rybczyński and Gábor Bódy never met, research into the language of film, interest in image-theory, and artistic and technical innovation are common features running parallel through their fifteen-year-body of work. Their artistic gestures were different, but both shared an intensive interest in new technologies, which they used to create "something unseen and unheard".
On the occasion of the event series, the complete video works of Gábor Bódy were published on DVD by C³. His entire catalogue was digitalized and his feature film,
Psyché was restored (produced by the Hungarian National Film Fund and Film Archive, with the support of C³ and the Akademie der Künste, Berlin). A great deal of preparatory work preluded the publication of the DVD and video-works: all available tapes were located, different versions were compared, and the highest quality version was chosen and technically adjusted (dropouts, subtitles etc.). The curator described this latter phase as, “to whip into shape a crumpled Tiziano”. The main consideration during restauration was to “not lose anything from the aura of the work”. The DVD did not enter the commercial circuit as the composer of a musical piece used in one video could not be located. Altogether, 200 free copies were printed.
