Distorted Session #10: Zaostřeno na Maďarsko

The tenth installment in the series of accompanying programs for the Distorted Image exhibition will take a closer look at Hungary. Hungarian media artist and filmmaker Péter Forgács will personally present his 1992 experimental film Arizona Diary (53 min.), which documents a journey through Arizona with Hungarian poet György Petri, whose verses are featured in the film, and neo-avant-garde artist György Galántai, founder of the Artpool research center in Budapest. Steina and Woody Vašulka also make brief appearances in the film. The film explores the genre of the film diary itself and tests its boundaries. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. The event takes place on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, at 5 p.m. at the House of Arts on Malinovského Square.

Péter Forgács (1950) is the author of film essays and installations, including the acclaimed extensive seriesPrivate Hungary*, which processes a collection of found-footage amateur films from the 1930s to the 1970s, capturing people’s everyday lives against the backdrop of historical traumas. Forgács was part of the Béla Balász film studio in Budapest and was also one of the editors of the video magazine Infermental.

In 1983, he founded the Private Photo & Film Archives Foundation (PPFA) in Budapest, a collection of amateur film footage. Between 2000 and 2002, he created an interactive multimedia installation based on his 1998 film of the same name,*The Danube Exodus: Rippling Currents of the River, which processes found amateur film footage capturing the journeys of refugees along the Danube, shot by ship captain Nándor Andrásovits between 1939 and 1940. It was first exhibited at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and later toured many European countries. The work was also released as a CD-ROM.
He has received numerous awards for his film work.

Tickets can be purchased in advance on GoOut or at the box office of the House of Arts.

About the exhibition<br>
Exhibition design: Kateřina Radakulan

The exhibition explores the origins of video art in the former Czechoslovakia, as well as in Poland and Hungary. It covers the period from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. The selection of key events and artworks cannot be separated from the overall social and political context, which largely determined access to technology, methods of working with video imagery, and the possibilities for sharing it. Using examples of works from various countries, the exhibition inspires viewers to seek out differences as well as parallels and points of connection.

The exhibition features experimental films, recordings of performances and events, and early animations, which round out the overall picture of the development of this art form. An important part of the exhibition consists of independent video magazines and news reports on politics and culture distributed on videotapes (including Originální Videojournal, Videomagazín Vokna, Videomagazín Karla Kyncla, and Infermental). In addition to single-channel video, the exhibition features various forms of video installations and video sculptures, many of which have been preserved only in documentation.