project 01


TURN!TURN!TURN! (TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON)


Materials: styrofoam


Presumably no historical person has such a polarizing reputation in Croatian –
Hungarian history as ban Jelačić does. In Hungary, his actions against the
Budapest and Vienna events were seen as both anti-liberal and illegitimate,
thereafter his exploitation by the Habsburgs – despite his utter loyalty – and
the common oppression under neo-absolutism was observed with
schadenfreude: “what Hungarians had to take as punishment, the rest had to
enjoy as a reward”, as the saying went. Then, with the Austro-Hungarian and
Hungarian-Croatian compromises, the Empire became a space where
contradicting national narratives and symbols could coexist for a while, even if
ever more divergently.
In 1990 the Hungarian government got involved in a Croatian arms shipment
manoeuvre (by Martin Špegelj), and suggested it was motivated by the
ideological proximity of the two governments. This lead to a scandal, given
Hungary’s past in dismantling Yugoslavia in WWII and also because of the
masses of “captive” Hungarians in Milošević’s Serbia. But according to
contemporary reports, despite the minor scale, Croatian units later
remembered the “Hungarian guns” as important support early in the conflict.

Around this time, Jelačić’s statue was re-erected in Zagreb with a 180 degree
turn, with his sword now pointing southward. If this alone would not have
been enough to cement the conviction that this symbolized a new relationship
with Hungary, in 1991 Hungary also turned away from the past, by moving the
Army Day from 29 September, the day of halting Jelačić at Pákozd/Sukoró to
another date.

As The Compass also shows, four directions are not always enough in a world
where directions shift and bend in national imagination. It is thus beneficial to
erect a statue for the Ban in the town where the conflict started; a statue
which is always possible to rotate and fine-tune towards the right direction
through the cooperation of a few strong people.
project 02

WORLD SUBAQUATIC


plein air – plein aqua

Less than a decade after the Treaty of Trianon and the termination of the
Hungarian Biological Station in Rijeka (1918), a new institute was founded
(1927) on the shore of Tihany Peninsula at Lake Balaton, where marine
research continued to exist despite the loss of the actual sea.

János Vaszary, a renown painter of the time was commissioned to paint a

decorative painting that reflected the function of the institute. According to
the commission, the concept meant to represent the flora and fauna of Lake
Balaton, however the final version – the 7,5 meters long oil painting – turned
out to be something else, depicting fantastic marine creatures in an expressive
style.

As Vaszary explained in a letter addressed to the director of the institute, he

already relinquished the representation of freshwater animals in the very
beginning, since those are " less varied, decorative and monumental
compared to the organic life of the sea, which is extremely rich and decorative
in colors and forms.” Considering the decorative purpose and great
dimensions of the picture, it proved to be a decisive factor.

The picture – even though its thematic choice was justified by artistic
affinities –  gives the demand for grandeur and monumentality, in a same
manner as symbolic politics, that as the consequence of the Treaty of Trianon
aspired to appeal for the self-esteem of a "mutilated" country.
As a homage to the historic painting of Vaszary, we aim to re-paint the
scenario under water recalling such practices from the beginning of the 20th
century, when artists and scientists went diving together in helmets and tried
drawing with zinc tablets and painting with oils in the sea. This reenacts the
collaboration between different social systems (art–science–politics), and
also the three ecologies after Guattari’s notion of the three ecologies (mental,
social and environmental). The helmet’s respective isolation also foregrounds
the idea of intellectual confinement characteristic to the post-war period,
when territorial negotiations were on the agenda against all odds for decades.
project 03
THE COMPASS 

Materials: steel frame, wood + pur foam coating, flowers, styrofoam

The Compass is a monument of tempestuous domains, where magnetisms

shift and sets instruments wild. This object is a replica of the four plinths from
the Revisionist Monument standing in the Liberty Square, Budapest in the
interwar periods. The monument was conceived as a reminder of the
dismembered former Hungarian Kingdom: the revision of the Versailles
Treaties (to regain Hungarian-majority areas and Transylvania under the
slogan “everything back!”). The plinths are symbolizing the four directions,
North, East, South and West and the corresponding ethnicities.

The giant flowerbed around the monument represents the Greater Hungary
with Croatia as an integral part of it. The four statues and the inscriptions do
not correspond to this idea, however. On the pillar symbolizing the “West”, a
young man is struggling, protected by the pagan Warlord-god. On the
“North”, two Slovak figures are defending the crucified Christ-Hungary. On
the “East”, Prince Csaba liberated the abused Transylvania. On the “South”, in
place of Croatians or the Hungarian Littoral, a Bačka German girl is seeking
refuge at a Hungarian peasant. This confusion and omission left some circles
in dismay demanding a discrete memorial of the sea with a fifth plinth.
Installed in the low-ceiling spaces of the Museum, the empty plinths can both
suggest disproportionate claims and a graveyard solemnity. Between them,
the original flowerbed concept is revisited in the shape of a starfish, a sea
animal that is capable of regeneration even after the loss of a part integral to
its body. The foundation of the analogy between the starfish and Hungary is
both underlined by the iconography of the “mutilated nation body” used ever
since the Trianon Peace Treaty and the historical text from the Nature
periodical that recounts the following:

“[...] for one reason, the integrity of their body is in danger, on the other, they
mutilation do not causes them great harm; they so not even care to lose one
of their body parts. In fact, if one or the other dwellers of the aquarium
injures, and the injured bodypart dies o and upon its decay contaminates the
water as well, the thoughtful nurse can help in a way by fishing out the this ill
from the water she does not cure it, but cuts o the hurt part and throws back
the thus operated animal in the water” Nature, 1898
project 04
NAMING YOU – COLLOQUIAL HUNGARIAN FOR THE ADRIATIC FAUNA

Materials: organic objects in formaldehyde (taxidermy) or/ with a tapestry of

the animals digitally sculpted

As late as in 1946, twenty five years after the Trianon peace treaty and thirty
years after the only one Hungarian seaside Institute for Biology and Marine
Research was ceased to exist, Gábor Kolosváry published two consecutive
articles on the Hungarian terminology for the Adriatic animals. By naming
almost 200 fishes and other marine creatures in colloquial Hungarian
language, made a referential claim to symbolic ownership and an effort to
anchor them in the public mind. The biologist also implied that anyone can
follow his lead by using the same approach by duly translating the Latin terms
to plain Hungarian.
Plan A: By using a 3D modelling software, the sea animals are cast in shapes
that do not follow the real anatomical build-up, but the literal meaning of the
folk Hungarian naming of the animals. This way the world-making potential
of language – that is able to act even without actual external reference – is
underscored by the fantastic creatures based on their nominal values

Plan B: The objects could be “inserted” into the permanent collection of the
Natural History Museum of Rijeka as part of an intervention. By juxtaposing
the “old” and “new”, the “real” and the “unreal”, the “archival” and the “living”,
the “specialist” and the “folk” an interesting dialogue could be staged between
the materials of science.
project 05

Opasno je van se nagnuti

Materials: aluminum channel, water, railroad window, custom metal plaque

Priličilo je to putniku u strelovitom vagonu; izmjenjuju se predjeli, stacije i sela,

ali on uvijek vidi "Opasno je van se nagnuti", izlizano drvo i "Na znanje".
Janko Polić Kamov, Isušena kaljuža

Bilingual inscriptions used by the Hungarian Railways and occasionally

elsewhere constituted a casus belli for the Croatian public. During the anti-
Hungarian riots of 1883, an information board in Zagreb was torn off by the
crowd and thrown into the Medveščak. The creek was feeding the
Manduševac on Jelačić Square and was also called the “Hungarian sea”,
mocking Hungarian marine aspirations and also the Hungarian prostitutes
working nearby. Ironically, bilingual train inscriptions seem to have made a
more lasting impression on Hungarians than on Croatians: “Opasno je van se
nagnuti”, a sentence mesmerizing travellers, became a phrase in Hungarian
literature and journalism for a few decades, partly in the sense of “so it goes”.
Speaking of train inscriptions and conflicts: in a 1913 reportage by one of the
few “pelagic” Hungarian writers, Vojvodina-born Kosztolányi, a passenger on
a Belgrad train scrapes a Hungarian inscription on the train window with his
ring: “there will be war”. In 1987, another Vojvodina poet, Koncz, finishes his
book with the line: “there will be war”.

This background – the eternal omen of war and the “Hungarian sea” with the
matter-of-fact inscriptions thrown into it – informs the elements of the
installation, which evokes the streamlet and includes an old-time railroad
window with the usual metal warning plaque but with a different inscription:
BIT ĆE RATA – HÁBORÚ LESZ.

project 06
AUTOBEAUTY 


augmented reality mobile application

In Hungary, the sweeping international movement of breaking with neo-
historical architectural styles – be it called Art Nouveau, Jugendstil or
Szecesszió – was also a quest for the “true national style.” The father figure of
this movement was Ödön Lechner, who sought to find Hungarianness in folk
culture and in the “Eastern heritage”, as part of the Turanist movement. While
Turanism covered a wide range of beliefs (from scientific research into the
origins of Hungarian people and language to conspiracy theories, mysticism or
militant racism), Lechner and his circle thought of identity and superiority in
the cultural terms of liberal nationalism, along the lines of the successful
Finnish national revival. Having both conservative opponents and dedicated
supporters in the upper echelons of Hungarian politics, and a growing number
of spectacular buildings, the Lechnerites strived to achieve cultural hegemony
through sheer beauty. Hungarianizing in education, forcing minorities to speak
Hungarian, would only lead to discontent and bitterness, Lechner argued.
Instead, Hungary’s might and “glorious chauvinism” must be communicated
through its “form language” (i. e. Formensprache):

“From the Carpathians to the Adriatic, we struggle to foster Hungarian culture

and expect the foreigner hailing his flag for Fiume to feel, to know, to profess
having entered Hungarian soil. But one cannot find a single building, a house,
a window in whole Fiume that would testify for the traveler: Here you enter
Hungary!” (Lechner 1906)

Before augmented reality became part of everyday life, it was often imagined
as a tool of subtle manipulation. In the movie, They Live, subliminal power
messages – “OBEY”, “CONSUME”– only reveal themselves for what they are
through special glasses (likewise the first artistic AR-piece revealed a virtual
idol, the Golden Calf). While struggle for control over architectural styles,
symbolism and topography was certainly present during the Hungarian times
of Rijeka – evidenced by the PPMHP building –, the texture and the
atmosphere of the city was not drastically altered.

The AR application, AUTOBEAUTY, would visualize the space of national

imagination through the mobile phone’s camera, by overmapping a digital
layer of ornaments on top of Rijeka’s existing physical architecture.

Both in the conceptual and the technical sense, the viewing experience should
be limited to a prominent point, e. g. the balcony of the PPMHP.