Media Relics

Mûcsarnok Jan 20 - Feb 25, 1996

The Media Relics exhibition presents various objects demonstrating the history of media technology. These instruments, machines, books, graphics and paintings will be presented in three halls of the Mūcsarnok according to the following categories:

ARS MAGNA LUCIS ET UMBRAE Laterna Magica Panorama, Diorama, Cosmorama Anamorphosis Silhouette, Physionotrace Caleidoscope Thaumatrope lOCULUS ARTIFICIALIS MUSURGIA UNIVERSALIS Camera obscura Microscope Telescope Stereoscope Phenakistoscope Daedalum Photographie Kinematographie Vibrographe, Harmonographe Polyphon, Gramaphon, Phonographe ARS MAGNA SCIENDI Ars combinatorica Telegraph Telephone Television Radio Telecommunication Computer

Media Relics refers to those objects which will be shown at the Mûcsarnok within the art historical event series entitled The Butterfly Effect..

Why relics? If an object that has been produced to operate does not function any longer, then it is nothing but a relic - if a cult has developed around it. As a functioning object, it is useless, but in attempting to understand the functioning of culture, it is indispensable. It becomes irreplaceable by virtue of its obsoleteness and becomes a museum piece. Inventors rarely intend to create antecedents to some future perfection, nor an obsolete document of their era. A new invention is always glistening and fashionable; it has to sell itself forever as a consumable piece of commodity, not as a revealing trace nor as a representation. This means that the intention and the result diverge: ultimately, that which survives remains not due to its usage, but by virtue of its representational value.

What is cult in media history? It is the antecedent to the clear, coherent historical image. It is the situation which is only able to interpret the objectified facts of its own history as relics, because it is so much occupied with the on-going prosperity of its present.

What is the aim of showing these relics? To confront the cult with its own past, that is, to take a step towards the creation of an unbroken history. To show the synchronisms, placing each of these sense-prostheses side by side. It is an attempt to demonstrate the correlations on a referential level. In this way, the inventors and artists, the scholars and showmen appear together, hiding behind the scenery of their invented or utilized, carefully kept or set aside media.