Artist: János Brückner
Exhibition title: Not Going Home
Curated by: Peter Bencze
Venue: Longtermhandstand, Budapest, Hungary
Date: February 28 – April 2, 2022
Photography: All images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Longtermhandstand, Budapest
“Fly free and you‘ll be free:
Live life as it‘s good and as one has to live”
(Fresh)
“The ground rumbles from our feet,
the house rumbles from our voices.
Your brain is shaken by rhythm,
the fever will take over your heart.”
(Emergency House)
A mass of couple hundred thousand people, marching in extase during the day with techno music through the heart of Budapest. All in peace and joy regardless of their sex, gender, age, color, musical and sexual preferences. This scene might look completely utopist from the perspective of our present, but it actually happened in couple following years in the early 2000s. However, it is not an uncommon thing in the history of humankind that people experience extase, liberty, joy through dance and music in together with other people. The project rave2000 is celebrating a bunch of these moments from the early 2000s
Hungarian party scene. Using lost archives of then-mainstream party photography, I give new life to some of these pieces of early digital photos which never had an actual physical existence. I re-create these images using a special painting technique which I call human printer: this method combines digital, pixel-based image creation with methods of classic painting.
“There is only one day, which is different from the others.
Open your eyes please,
look around since everyone you love is here.
There is only one day.
It’s beautiful as the smile shines on your face.
Do you see how many we are?
The secret that everyone has been talking about
is now opening to you as well.
There is only one day.
Open your heart and let the music in!
Enjoy the colors, feel the vibes,
and remember this day:
for the secret is already living in you.”
(Náksi vs. Brunner feat. Myrtill)
I work with the imagery of the early 2000s Hungarian party photography, because this was a short period of time where nobody really cared about the camera at a party and now – from the imagined future of those moments – we can experience extreme and contradictional situations and emotions on those images:ups and downs,confusion and clarity,being lost and finding community,dark rampage together withbright and happy exstase.
