Protestants, and living in a society where bears resemblance to their Viennese a downwardly mobile nobility occupied counterparts, although Ady’s insistent .Photograhic Journey through many middle-class positions. May we nationalism and use of proto-Magyar apply a Schorske-like interpretation myths suggests a less cosmopolitan Time and Space to this artist and his environment? For response to the dual challenges of one, Ady’s Calvinist upbringing surely aesthetic frustration and political influenced the religious content of his marginalization. Demonstrating that this work, in a way that might have not is the result of the intelligentsia’s more been the case for someone raised in the noble, and less Jewish, makeup would mainstream Catholic Church. Secondly, require more research. the aesthetic turn of the Nyugat writers Shandor Hassan

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At-Large Mai Manó Ház Brooklyn, NY 1065 Budapest, Nagymező u 20. [email protected] www.maimano.hu Advisor: Orsolya Kőrösi ......

As a photographer in Budapest Hungary I have worked on several projects that reflect my continued interest in the development and transformation of Urban space and the relation to culture, society, architectural space and its histories. Also by looking at the history of Hungarian photography and artistic activities, particularly of the early 20th century, I have traced roots of my own artistic expression and the influence that art and artists in Hungary (and tangential movements in Europe) have influenced the arts in the United States.

Introduction

The time as a Fulbright student/researcher has been focused on the continuation of my photographic and artistic work. The photography and artistic activity that I have done here involve several modalities or approaches to making works, four of which I will present in this writing and talk, all are part of my continued exploration of the making of images and art works with photography as well as instillation and multi-media.

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The particular interest in the work of The form of presentation now, i.e., the after leaving the Bauhaus in Germany the interest in the direction that Moholy Hungarian photographers and artists of computer and projection suits the purpose which was closed due to the rise of the Nagy took, and the interest I have in new the early 20th century has been part of of presenting to an audience the work in Nazi Party. Moholy Nagy founded the forms of photographic art making will my general studies during the Fulbright its current state of development. New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, latter continue in the future work and research academic year. The Bauhaus and DADA known as the Institute of Design, Kepes that I make. art movements which it seems intersected, also tought their and went on to teach I have also have re-visited the work of are most interesting to me both in my Hungarian Photographers art at other institutions, and latter in Thomas Barow, who studied photography own practice as a photographer, but also and artists Direct and 1968 was the founder of the Center for at the Institute of Design in Chicago in my work in design and furniture, and in Indirect Influences Advanced Visual Studies at MIT which formally the “New Bauhaus” founded object assemblage and instillation work, became significant in various forms of by Moholy Nagy. Thomas Barrow was and the evolution and influence that it has There are many very significant artists arts related and scientific research. (more my professor at the University of New had on the art in contemporary American and photographers of Hungarian origin detail) Mexico where I studied photography. art and its history until now. The primary that have had influence on art in Europe While Barrow did not study under research/work, however, here in Hungary and in the United States, Of the most These moves had lasting effects on Moholy Nagy he was clearly influenced for the Fulbright term has been in my noted and well documented are the approaches to art making that go beyond and made specific reference to him own artistic production. photographers, Andre Kertesz, Brassai, any borders of medium or style, and both in his work. I include some samples/ Robert Capa, Cornell Capa, George were interfacing with scientific ideas and illustrations that also help to define the thought, and in both cases took on the influences that Moholy Nagy had on Synopsis Makacsi, Gyrogy Kepes and Laszlo Maholy Nagy. All of these individuals subject of light as not only a tool but as other artists and educators. University of have had an enormous and lasting impact the subject for work and research. It is New Mexico was the first school in the In Hungary I have spent my time in on artistic and cultural history, and their particularly the practice of Laszlo Moholy United States to offer a Masters of fine making several groups of photographic works are published and available, and Nagy that I have made some attempts to arts in Photography, Thomas Barrow was work, and experimenting with some have been fundamental to the direction get closer to by looking at his works and there nearly from the beginning of its new ways of making photographs. I of photography and art in contemporary reading some of his writing. I am not inception, and was and is quite influential have attended the libraries of the Mai times, and inadvertently in defining new presenting any scholarly presentation on as an educator of photographic-arts. I Mano Haz and the Laszlo Moholy Nagy styles of art, fashion, film and culture in his works here, however. As an artist I raise this only as an example in the way in school to look at books of Hungarian general. have made some reference in the works of which art and culture and education are photographers and other various artists, scans and computer generated collage; the traveling, and tracing my own connection attending art exhibitions, museums, and The last two Nagy and Kepes, were not fourth group of work that I will present to the work and ideas of Moholy Nagy spending time with artists. exactly photographers but experimenters and describe in my overview. In the least before I new what his art and life were in art and also in the science/practice of I am thinking about how art is a means to about. And here now I am just scratching In this paper and discussion I will present art making in a “new” era of technology communicate complex ideas about space the surface. five bodies of work with a brief description and production, and were considered and time, how light is a subject itself in of the work, or reflection on its meaning originally more as painters. The art making, and how art is about research There are numerous American artists and what it is inspired by. Pleas note influence they had was not only in their and experimentation throughout the life and art movements that were influenced that all photographic projects that are own experimentation as artists, and as of artists work and can interface with by the ideas of the Bauhaus, and the presented are in progress, that most have photographers, but also in the field of a multitude of ideas. I hope that I have DADA artists/movement. It seems in been made for the purpose of a book education. In the United states they done some experimentation while here contemporary times Moholy Nagy among style editing, and for exhibiting as prints both become founders and key figures in Hungary, that may advance my work other powerhouses, among them people at a latter date, or are just experiments. of higher education in the United States into new and other directions, and that like Joseph Albers who taught at the Black

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Mountain College in North Carolina and educational principle, which strives Capitalism that separated Europe in new was also from the Bauhaus in Germany, for the closest connection between art, ways, and the divisions between nations 2. Budapest: Taxonomies as well as Kepes at MIT they represent a science, and technology. that define our current situation in history The sites that I am interested in, that force and influence on American Art and and political life now. these photographs represent are in the Culture that is important to consider. And As Moholy Nagy says himself process of being transformed by the It seems that Moholy Nagy had the regarding the idea of discussing art and The photographic work also, makes direct human hand in one way or another, awareness of that potential, as he writes experiencing art: reference to the idea of war photography either by labor/ construction workers, in the introduction of his (guide book to in general. By chance the tour fallows but also by the individual effort to repair the education of young artists) The New One can never experience art through the path that the famous Hungarian war or to make ones own improvements to Vision: descriptions. Explanations and analyses photographer Robert Capa made as he the environment/city infused with the are at best an intellectual preparation. covered the “story” and as he writes about architecture itself. These are the markings Now a new Bauhaus is founded on They may, however, encourage one to it in his book Slightly Out Of Focus. This of a transforming environment. They are American soil. America is the bearer make a direct contact with works of art. has a particular significance for me as I also collectively an organic movement of a new civilization whose task is have been a teacher and associated with in the spaces, representing evolution simultaneously to cultivate and to the International Center of Photography in time and space. The photographs industrialize a continent. It is the The fallowing projects are more or less that was founded by his brother Cornell together are not typological or a real ideal ground on which to work out an chronological: Cape in 1974 and houses the archives taxonomical categorical organization of of Robert Capa. I was involved in the the city of Budapest; they are intended as exhibition of his work this is War at the an impressionistic type of “Taxonomy”

ICP. and means to relate the information of PROJECTS an urban landscape to each other and WAR (the images I present here) is a to making a new way to describe and 1. WAR mythical remembrance, a story of lost define the monuments of a place, they are time, something that feels and smells archeological and anthropological, and in This collection of photographs came The work that I did for myself on this tour familiar, that has the resemblance of our these works I am acting as a collector of about during a tour that I made for a and as I have edited it, addresses the ”idea” own world but might belong to someone things. start up company that has developed a of the tour as story of war in a different else in that it is fading, and is a way to tour, for American tourists, fallowing the way. Through the various modes, of think on the gap between the generations Construction sites are especially 101st Airborne, based on a documentary museum displays, films, archives, and dividing this memory. The museums fascinating as they are the actual HBO series called Band of Brothers. The actual historic places/locations that were and space from which the photographs locations of the building of a city. tour fallows the training of American visited. This work developed into an are derived are part of our collective Fundamentally this collection of work troops in the US initial trip to England abstracted idea of war, as an experiment of experience, and our memories are held comes to the terms of architecture and and continues to the landing at Omaha its time, and to the effort of understanding there, as in books we can revisit the idea of built spaces. It is a way to uncover what beach through France, Netherlands, the scale that WWII had on human life, war, but not know what it was like unless is architectural space without focusing Belgium, Germany and Austria, to the geographical landscape and territory, we actually touch it. But what we can on the physical buildings of Budapest. It Dachau concentration camp and the technological advancements, and on touch is the way that war has shaped the is the remainders and refractions of the final destination of the Eagles Nest in the global level and the aftermath that very way that life is lived now in front of buildings that I am interested in, whether Austria. The photographs I made for the this has on our lives now. Including the us, and how territory and ideas are formed from the new structures being formed, tour company was for the purpose of the isolation of parts of Europe, the Nuclear to construct what we might call a country or the old deforming into something website and promotion of the tour, and as Arms Race, and the sharp and harsh or a national identity. These photographs else, and maybe back into the earth a record and were in color. distinction between Communism and are an attempt to address these issues. itself. Architecture is in this sense all

256 257 AY 2008-2009 Shandor Hassan: Photographic Journey Through Time and Space things related to built environment that connection to nature, to earth, and to extensions of our lives, and brains. They participate in the creation of that space, 2. Forgotten Land place. These are efforts to metaphorically are part of the complex tools that store and includes things that non builders are The photographic work Forgotten Land address what we as humans are doing and reflect our fundamental technological involved with. is a means of looking at time and space, with our land, and to our earth. Have we selves. They are also then reflective of both in relation to place itself but in forgotten our connection to it, how to live the interior workings of our brains and How and where is the center of the relation to the passing of photographic in it? And how to be part of it? It is also the inner workings of a kind of hyper and mechanism of the construction site? history, where photographs become a a means for me to address the idea of the molecular urbanism that is driving the In the world of these images the entire kind of place, a virtual place. At once it is loss of a land for a people, an idea that at way to our global interconnectedness at city becomes a kind of construction/ an attempt to recall a kind of memory of once people had inhabited a space and any instant. These shards and pieces in destruction environment, constantly the way that Black and white photography called it a home, and now it is forgotten, the reversed scans are objects that might under transformation, and leaving clues has been an influence on me in how I first but forgotten means in fact that somehow as well be from our own brains, not any and pieces of its history. As well these learned to see with the camera, and on our it is remembered as it is passed through less then machines that our brains have photographs attempt to address my collective understanding of the history generations. fabricated. interest in the arts of painting, sculpture, of our world fused with photographic photography and architecture. They history. The collage works, are comprised of are elements that I am collecting, some 3. Scan-grams and images from the Internet, including I would like to have in their miniature It is partly an attempt to go back in time Composite NASA, and New York Times, and form. It is for this reason I make these other photographs from the websites, by using a modality that does not need to The scan-grams are a technological photographs, to engage in the materiality be used, as we have for numerous years as well as a fusion of my own archive of of our world and try to further understand exploration, and in part a computer photographic work, scans of objects color and now other forms of “image assisted reproduction of the process of the meaning of human natures Capturing”. It is an effort to move into the and drawings, and the inclusion of text. relationship to the things we make, and the photogram. Photograms were ways This began as a reference to the works future using digital technology, and into that without a camera, artists like Moholy the things we fix, and ultimately the the past. Fundamentally the work is about of various American artists, including environment we live in. Nagy worked with light as a tool and Thomas Barrow who I mentioned earlier, landscape and environment, abstracting subject. it, fusing architectural environments, Ed Ruche, and other American artists that included advertising/billboard like text in sky, ground and projection monitors, to The works scan-grams are looking at the anthropology |ˌanθrəˈpäləjē| their work, and the collage and DADA art investigate the idea of where and what interior of technological spaces. These noun works that made word play and collage is landscape, and from what direction are both documents of objects that we the study of humankind, in particular works. do we inhabit this environment. The may or may not recognize. By making (also cultural or social anthropology) the • abstraction is both reference to various them “negative” they become part of a comparative study of human societies and cultures The uses of text in images are a way to photographers especially of Hungarian world of outer space, which is my interest and their development. abstract language and to re address certain origin that have relocated us in time in both the scans and the collages. They (also physical anthropology) the science of sets of accepted ideas about language of • and space with the way that they chose are both scientific in appearance and human zoology, evolution, and ecology. to photograph, where ground becomes technological, political, theoretical, and in feeling, also organic in the way that philosophical. They challenge the notion subject and, the relationship of things they are now somehow likened to living archaeology |ˌärkēˈäləjē| (also archeology) of some ultimate authority that language in the photo transforms, where views objects, or organisms. The scans are of noun may have or how sources such as the become flattened and space is no longer parts of the bodies of cameras, and from the study of human history and prehistory through New York Times may use words in their about the perspective, in three dimensions computers, from televisions, machines the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts combination to create types of signage but in a more vast concept of space that that we have come to accept as natural and other physical remains. involves time the fourth dimension. and be incredibly influential in the notion In the title I am addressing the loss of a

258 259 AY 2008-2009 Shandor Hassan: Photographic Journey Through Time and Space that there is some authority that might space, and addresses the issues and Funk refers to several thing in American place where numerous artists, curators, be controlling any given situation. But collisions of the primal and the culture, music, that developed from the architects, English translators and locals perhaps also this challenges the notion technological in a time of spiritual and black American blues tradition, as well as go to have a coffee or a soup. As well the of religious authority that suggests political flux. becoming a movement in 70’s art culture café walls serve as the photo gallery and if something is written and formally called California Funk, the word itself an exhibition is held monthly; inviting conceived then it has great power over our The instillation project is a means describes emotional mood, smell/stench, various photographers from throughout actions, whether it is through advertising to explore the interaction of various or something being particularly cool. Folk the world Lumen is an international or through the means of political control. modes of art making. In this project I and Funk have had particular meaning in meeting place. The collective is a group am incorporating the scanned works, my life as an American in growing up in of photographers who meet and present The computer as a tool inherently the digital projection of images from California. Hungary I believe has its own various topics on photography as well addresses a new idea of infinite space, the project Forgotten Land, and the qualities for these words; in the instillation as discuss relevant issues; they present and arbitrary dimensionality. The collection of objects, and mixed media Hungarian Folk Funk I am overlapping their own work and the work of other computer allows for an enormous scale, assemblages that I have found and made. my own experience with Folk Funk as an photographic artists. in miniaturized form, and acts as a kind The project Hungarian Folk Funk is both American, but also in the fact that I come of model/plan for potentially larger collected from the Urban Environment in from Hungarian Romanian and other Peti Laszlo runs the café, and the printable works; ones that go far beyond Budapest and from the various ways that I eastern European Jewish lineage. photographic group by Geregely Laszlo. the screen. The idea of this projection have made work here. The Laszlo brothers has in effect included in space is of interest in its collision with The issues of nationalism are me into their family and friends and to where information can be derived from. The instillation in its entirety relates fundamentally ideas that are expressed in the life of the café. I have volunteered my The computer like our mind is a type of to my interest in film and theatricality our landscape and our relation to earth, services and abilities in building various synthesizer of all things, and ultimately a in the landscape and includes narrative technology and survival. As territory is cabinets for the gallery, as well as giving sampler. In this way computer collage that elements. The total space is a kind of what defines a country and a language, and my advice on the running of the business I am exploring is about the collision of the deconstructed film project, or theatrical some notion of who one is supposed to be. end of the café, and the cultural aspects machine as it intercepts the conduits of space. My experimentation with using the The instillation references various modes of the Photo group. I have presented my massive amounts of information. multi media modes is a way to get further of time, actual time as in the present of work to the group and have participated into the idea of what is landscape? As a what is in front of us in the instillation in numerous discussions at the café about place belonging to Earth, and as a human and the human interpersonal drama that photographers work. In this way lumen Hungarian Folk Funk: history: a social-political environment pre occupy us; geological time as in the has been an ongoing conversation, both Photography, Found that belongs to human evolution, control, transformation of things and structures with photography, small business in Objects, Instillation/ and national identities. because of the earth’s movements, and the Hungary, and in the daily lives of various Sculpture cosmic time which is beyond our ability to artists and in Budapest. The Lumen group The terms Folk and Funk have references comprehend but what we must accept. has both been a source of friendship and HUNGARIAN FOLK FUNK is a multi to cultural aspects and movements that family, as well as a sociological window I have been influenced by in America into one aspect of the transforming media instillation of found objects Lumen assemblages, constructions and and in other parts of the world. Folk is a Hungarian culture. photographic works that are mined from reference to the music, art, architecture The photo-gallery and café and photo the Budapest landscape and histories. and food that is derived from folk culture, collective group known as Lumen has In this work I am fusing physical and coming from the people and often the been a significant part of my time here psychological terrain. This work small” village” life. It is a challenge to in Budapest and has in many ways acted references the material transformations the idea that art, architecture and such is as my affiliation. Lumen as a café isa and entropic manifestations in urban formed out of the Elite society.

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