As part of the European “Cultural XR Network” project, Unframed Collection and {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES], in partnership with the French Institute of Budapest (Hungary), are launching a call for applications to select participants for a 4-day professional delegation to Budapest, from June 3 to 6, 2024.
The objectives of this professional delegation are to :
- Promote the development of immersive production projects;
- Increase bilateral exchanges and dialogue between various European cultural players and Hungary ;
- Create opportunities for collaboration with Hungarian partners.
The program in a few visits and meetings
Visit the Light Art Museum
The Light Art Museum is a digital art center located in the Grandes Halles of a covered market in central Budapest, close to the Parliament. The artworks on display offer innovative artistic interpretations of the nature of light, exploring concepts such as supernovas, black holes, parallel universes, programmed neural networks, as well as aurora borealis captured in crystalline structures and light choreography reflected on the retina.
The current exhibition, SUPERLUMINAL, presents a journey through digital works created by over 40 international artists. The exhibition poses the question: how would our vision of the world change if human perception were possible in relations faster than the speed of light in a vacuum?
For the venue, the aim is to bring contemporary art to the general public using the appeal of the digital and luminous dimension, attracting over 200,000 visitors a year.
Visit to the Museum of Ethnography.
Budapest’s Ethnographic Museum (Néprajzi Múzeum) is an institution dedicated to the preservation and understanding of the traditional lifestyles of the Hungarian people, with particular emphasis on the Magyar tribes. Since 2022, it has been located in the museum district, Varosliget, Budapest’s oldest municipal park.
This district is now home to a series of monuments, baths and museums in the east of the city, following a colossal construction program that has given rise to numerous political, economic and ecological debates (see Courrier International’s À Budapest, un spectaculaire musée ethnographique au cœur du Bois de Ville ).
The museum recently introduced an innovative digital mediation initiative: the Magic Wall, developed by the Back and Rosta company. This dynamic interactive video wall offers the possibility of accommodating large groups and integrating various elements of digital mediation in an interactive way, with unique functionalities designed to enrich the interactive video wall experience. The visit organized as part of the delegation will provide an insight into why the Musée ethnographique chose this device and how it collaborated in the design of this interpretive tool, which lies at the crossroads of traditional digital mediation and cultural immersion.
Visit Magyar Zene Haza (Hungarian Music City)
Hungary’s House of Music, a unique and complex institution of musical initiation and the site of the country’s first comprehensive exhibition presenting the history of music, opened its doors in the city park in January 2022.
Although Hungary is renowned for its musical heritage, no multi-faceted exhibition presenting the history of Hungarian music in the context of European music had been hosted in a Hungarian institution before this one. The emblematic building, designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, was selected from among 170 international projects and, since the announcement of its selection as the winner of the architectural competition, has attracted considerable attention in international professional circles.
This is confirmed, for example, by the fact that at the start of 2021, CNN and the World Architecture Community ranked it among the ten most eagerly awaited new buildings of the year. The final result did not disappoint: a true contemporary architectural masterpiece has come into being.
In addition to concerts and educational activities, the House of Music Hungary offers a more immersive and contemplative experience in a 100% digital or hybrid sound dome with live sessions. The visit will provide an opportunity to review the site’s uncommon policy of audience development, with a host of interactive features designed to use immersive technologies to introduce visitors to the arcades of musical creation.
France / Hungary meetings
The delegation will meet with various players in the cultural and creative industries: representatives of B2B and B2C events, creative studios and artists’ collectives, as well as innovative cultural venues.
About events :
In terms of events, the Museum Digit conference, organized by the National Center for Museum Methodology and Information (NCMMI) at the Hungarian National Museum, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023. Every year, this major professional event brings together many of the world’s cultural institutions, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Austria, the Tampere Art Museum, the National Museum of Norway and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid).
→ Link to the MuseumDigit website MuseumDigit.
Another notable event is the Zsolnay Light Festival, a b-to-c festival held outdoors in downtown Pécs. Every year in July, this event features a mapping festival where luminous creations are video-projected in a walk-through approach, including an impressive mapping on the facade of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Cathedral. This popular and artistically renowned event also offers a rich program of activities (performances, workshops, comedy shows…) over the 4 days of the festival. In Hungary, this immersive event with such a diversity of digital devices, installations and interactive shows is unique.
→ Link to the website of Zsolnay Light Festival (Pécs)
For creative studios and artistic companies:
We are organizing meetings with three major players in Hungary’s digital art scene: Limelight, Back and Rosta Ltd. and Kiégő Izzók (Glowing Bulbs).
Limelight is a studio specializing in digital art design, distinguished by its productions of light installations, including projection mapping and immersive experiences. Winner of numerous international awards, the studio has some forty impressive projects to its credit. These include the impressive mapping of the Club Tower at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, where over 1.6 million lumens produced by 52 Barco 30k+ lumen projectors created a stunning spectacle, marking the world’s largest video game projection. The work, entitled“Revival“, is the result of a co-production between artists from diverse and multinational backgrounds, and explores the dichotomy of celebrating the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another notable achievement is“Circle of Life“, more focused on scientific mediation topics. This immersive indoor experience, projected onto the surface of a 16-meter-diameter round room with a 5-meter-high wall, retraces the life cycles observed in nature, while the floor features interactive animation reacting to visitors’ movements.
→ Link to other projects by Limelight.
Back & Rosta Ltd. is renowned for its innovative approach to enhancing the museum experience through digital technology, most notably through the development of the highly immersive “Magic Wall” exhibition. These giant, multi-user touch-screen Magic Walls offer the ability to present any content using beautiful, dynamic and eye-catching special effects, while allowing interaction with large crowds simultaneously. This meeting offers a unique opportunity to deepen the visit to the Ethnographic Museum (Néprajzi Múzeum), where one of these devices is installed.
In addition, for further information, a video presentation of the company’s immersive mediation formats was given at the last edition of Museum Connections by its founder, Steven Back, as part of the Duos de l’Innovation.
→ Link to the website of Back & Rosta Ltd.
Kiégő Izzók (Glowing Bulbs) is a group of visual artists based in Budapest and New York. They have been active since 1998, and specialize in videomapping, architectural mapping, scenic design, installations and live VJ performances.
They have numerous digital art installations in public spaces to their credit (e.g. FRACTURE in the gardens of the Hungarian Academy Rome; the immersive RESONAUTICA dome; Wir sind! on a square in Leipzig).
-> Link to the website of Kiégő Izzók (Glowing Bulbs)
For immersive cultural venues
The Le Code project is being developed to transform a former cultural center in Veszprém county into an interactive digital arts center. The shows will offer a constantly evolving immersive experience, based on interaction with visitors. Once the reconstruction is complete, visitors will have access to different experience zones. The exhibition area on the first floor will feature permanent and temporary digital and analog installations. On the upper floor, l’Hexagone, a 400 square metre former theater, will mainly host 360-degree immersive shows, as well as hybrid events and theatrical and musical productions. The former stages and backstage areas will be converted into a 60-square-meter studio, suitable for interactive, three-dimensional 180-degree shows and projections, and able to accommodate 25 to 30 visitors at a time.
→ Link to Code website (Veszprém)
And finally, the presentation of two other venues that we will have had the opportunity to visit:
- LAM Light Art Museum : see presentation of Tuesday visit above
- Magyar Zene Háza : see Tuesday presentation above
Art Quarter Budapest tour
Art Quarter Budapest (aqb) is an independent art center established in Budapest, Hungary, in 2012. Housed in the former Haggenmacher Brewery, a renovated industrial building, it functions as an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art, a studio, as well as an artist-in-residence program.
Numerous Hungarian visual artists and creative companies have taken up residence in this complex of buildings, making it a landmark in the local artistic landscape. aqb runs an international residency program and offers a dedicated space for an experimental sound studio. Through its non-profit gallery Project Space, it organizes regular exhibitions. Thanks to its diversity, aqb has become a cultural hub for an international creative community, bringing together artists from diverse fields such as music, applied arts, dance and visual arts. Focused on audience development, aqb also offers art events and cultural programs for the local community, while fostering international networking.
