The volume *Visual Expansions* explored the historical and media-related precursors to the emergence of Hungarian electrography and electronic art. The study examined those avant-garde and intermedia endeavors that led to new visual and linguistic experiments through the artistic application of photocopiers, fax machines, moving images, and early computer technologies. Significant emphasis was placed on those creative communities and artists—such as the Magyar Műhely and its circle—who, working at the intersections of text, image, and technical media, laid the foundations for the early forms of Hungarian electrography.
11≙ 1011, on the other hand, surveyed the full flowering of the digital era, exploring the growing use of computer technologies in art through the work of the artists of the Hungarian Electrographic Society (MET).
Although this volume will be published later as the third part of the research program, the period it covers falls chronologically between the two earlier publications. The 1990s represent a unique transitional period. While experiments with electrographic and techno-media in the 1970s and 1980s primarily emerged as part of avant-garde and intermedia art practices, during this period the gradual emergence of personal computers, the internet, and the strengthening of international artistic connections, digital imaging became increasingly accessible to a wider audience. The 1990s can thus be viewed as a period in which the analog era coexisted with the post-regime-change digital revolution, as well as a preparatory phase for later computer-based art practices.
We hope that this volume will serve as a link connecting the experimental period of the 1970s and 1980s with the increasingly diverse electrographic and digital art practices that have emerged since the 2000s. At the same time, it offers an opportunity to devote greater attention to those artists, studios, and creative strategies that played a significant role in the development of technology–based image–making in Hungary during the 1990s, yet have received less emphasis in previous studies.
This study does not attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of the Hungarian digital and technomedia art scene of the 1990s. The diversity of artistic phenomena during this period and the sheer volume of available source material would exceed the scope of a work of this length. The study therefore adopts a significantly narrower focus, placing greater emphasis on those artists and initiatives linked to the Árnyékkötők art circle, Sándor Bátai’s organizational activities, and the initiatives in Kaposvár, as well as those that led to subsequent institutionalization processes, such as the founding of the Hungarian Electrographic Society. At the same time, the study also covers a somewhat broader field, addressing the institutions, workshops, and events that played a decisive role in the development of technology-based art in Hungary during the 1990s, including, among others, the Artpool, C3, and SZTAKI scenes, as well as the related exhibition, communication, and networking events.
This broader, yet still selective framework allows us to examine the period through the lens of partially overlapping creative relationships, uses of media, and infrastructures. In addition, it is important to note that, due to the specific nature of the artistic milieu under examination, some of the artists discussed have also appeared in our previous research. The history of electrography in Hungary is not organized along sharp chronological boundaries, but rather along the lines of artistic oeuvres and networks of creative relationships that have responded to new technologies and media over the course of several decades. Many artists began experimenting with electrografika as early as the 1970s and 1980s, went on to play an active role in the art world during the 1990s and 2000s, and continue to be active to this day. This volume therefore necessarily includes artists who have already appeared in our previous publication, though here they are interpreted within a different time period or context.
Artists featured in this volume: Sándor Bátai, András Bohár, Tibor Budaházi, Attila Csernik, Balázs Czeizel, Péter Csíkvári, László Csízy, Zsuzsa Dárdai, Vera Dávid, Árpád Fenyvesi Tóth, János Géczi, Zsolt Gyenes, Ágnes Haász, Ede Halbauer, Ferenc Harangozó, Péter Herendi, Hervé Rodolf, Joseph Kádár, Péter Kecskés, Csilla Kelecsényi, Csilla Kis-Kéry, Borbála Kováts, Ferenc Lantos, Jenő Lévay, Erzsébet Lieber, László L. Simon, Antal Lux, Gyula Máté, Vera Molnár, László Ország, Géza Perneczky, András Petőcz, Edit Sándor, János Saxon Szász, János Sugár, Zoltán Szegedy–Maszák, László Szlaukó, István Tenke, Gábor Tóth, Tibor Vass, Tamás Waliczky, Péter Wrobel, Ervin Zsubori