Social Engine

ACC Gallery Weimar and SYAA Budapest have initiated a joint art and research project. Its goal is to explore the general ideas about flexible work in German and Hungarian society. The project employs the methods of sociology and work psychology in an art framework, involving researchers of social scientific background.

Following in the footsteps of the foregoing works of Hungarian artist Miklós Erhardt and the German Reinigungsgesellschaft artist group, the project raises further issues. Namely, how it is feasible for contemporary art to represent various economic processes and how it can prove educational with regard to various social processes.

The project’s background is the comparison of social and economic changes in post-transition Hungary and post-reunification Germany. Focusing on the social role of the changing and ever more flexible concept of work, the project endeavours to grasp the dynamics of flexibility generated by insecurity and of insecurity generated by flexibility. The project examines the economic and social role of work and the impact of these on individual identities.