An interview series with participating artists and artist collectives of the event: archive of futures II by Montag Modus, July 2023. These conversations are to give a deeper understanding on artists’ working methodologies, their thoughts on the dichotomy of East and West, and in particular, the works they present at Montag Modus’ archive of futures II. Interviews were conducted with Przemek Kamiński, Alicja Rogalska, Marta Ziółek, and Hollow by curator and art historian Zsu Zsuró on the occasion of the event.

The whole interview with Hollow is available on KAJET Digital.

The charged energy of community and the presence of cold darkness concurrently linger around the complex artworks of Hollow. Initiated by Gyula Muskovics, Tamás Páll, and Viktor Szeri, the collective aims to create liminal spaces between real life and the digital realm, present and future. They do so by balancing on the threshold of theories of dystopia and utopia. Playfully creative yet sublime performance pieces emerge from an ever-changing dynamic of such dichotomy. Since 2018 Hollow challenges the Hungarian and, more recently, the CEE regional and European audiences on perceptions about the world that surrounds us.

In search of a more honest worldview, Hollow tries to find ways of expression by merging the fields of the digital realm, performativity, academic theory and visual arts with visceral senses of perception as well as memory. In the form of the Archive, story-telling and narrative continuation between artworks both characterise their working methods.

Hollow entered the art scene of Hungary with Phoenix in 2018, a multi-faceted performance piece at an abandoned supermarket. Breaking the rigid perceptions on art-making with queer methodologies, this work immediately drew attention on the collective.

Summit, their 2019 piece had a great focus on the involvement of audiences and therefore the actual day of performance was preceded by a weeks-long community building with quizzes, chat groups with organisers, and choreography-learning. This way, not only the collective, but several contemporary dancers, and a wider audience were all part of the experience. 

Hollow just debuted their latest performance piece Aura at Trafó House, Budapest. They had the opportunity to further develop the piece during a residency organised in cooperation with Montag Modus at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway. As a result they will show this new version in Berlin at the archive of futures II performance exhibition organised by Montag Modus. The event is realised in search for a better (or rather realistic) future with the tools of performance art. Against the backdrop of Polish and Hungarian perspectives, artists are invited to imagine subversive alternative realities in spite of prevailing hostile cultural ideologies.

Hollow embodies the shared hallucinations of dancer and choreographer Viktor Szeri, media artist and game designer Tamás Páll, and curator and writer Gyula Muskovics. They have been working collectively since 2018, combining their visible and immaterial forces with sound and game mechanics to create immersive environments and cross-reality experiences. They merge the methodologies of contemporary dance with poetics, new media, augmented reality, and live action role-play to build world prototypes where the dominant systems of consensual reality can be questioned and modified. Hollow has worked on topics such as queer cruising, the hyperspace, millennial cults, the radicalization of the gamer subculture, among others, and performed at venues such as Trafó House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest, HU), MeetFactory (Prague, CZ) or Donaufestival (Krems, AT).

Zsuzsanna Zsuró is an art historian and curator with work experience in cultural institutions and relevant knowledge on contemporary art and culture. As a PhD candidate, she is researching socially engaged art practices in the Hungarian diaspora. Zsuro is specialized in modern and contemporary art theory and practice; cultural policy; alternative art institutional strategies; decolonisation in the CEE region. Zsuro writes to cultural publications as well as presents at conferences locally and internationally. She has created exhibitions such as ‘Resisting Erasure: Queer Art in Hungary’ in Cologne (DE) and ‘Let’s Alter The Narrative’ at Tate Modern, London (UK); was curator of artistic projects like ‘AUDITION’ critically acclaimed by Vogue and Dazed; and created residency programmes such as Project Hu (Ghost Relics) in London (UK). She also has an experience working in major cultural institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest.