How can one live in the present? How can one survive the present in the increasingly oppressive shadow of a dystopian future? How can a young artist respond to the specter of environmental catastrophe, global polarization, escalating conflicts, or even the specter of total technological control?
Sculptor János Zsolt Budai and graphic artist and illustrator Zsolt Varga respond with a similar coping mechanism: escapism. They draw on the nostalgic aesthetics and technological optimism of the past — specifically, the Space Age and Atom Age — to construct radical retrofuturistic worlds. They draw on an era in which, for at least two decades (1950–70), it was plausible that humanity was building a hopeful, almost problem-free future with the help of science and technology — and the conquest of outer space was the most brilliant example of this.
The exhibiting artists do not use retro visual elements out of mere nostalgia, but blend them with contemporary, playful, and personal undertones to create their own sci-fi mythologies. Technological utopia was already a collective escapist bubble back then (among other things, a mental refuge from the threats of the Cold War and nuclear war), and it serves exactly the same purpose today: it can transport both the creator and the audience into alternative dimensions where unlimited and fantastical possibilities lead us to believe that we are capable of control and that we hold our future in our own hands.