Ludwig Lounge - BLACK MIRROR

This edition of Ludwig Lounge is connected to the exhibition Black Mirror: The Long Shadow of the Future. The afternoon’s programmes approach the exhibition’s central questions from different perspectives: How can we understand our present through artistic visions of the future created in the recent past? How can the concept of dystopia offer ways of thinking forward? To what extent does technology shape our present and our ideas about the future? And how do these thought experiments transform our environment, our social relationships, and the way we think about ourselves?

The afternoon begins with a subjective guided tour by writer and journalist Imre Para-Kovács, followed by a conversation moderated by Dávid Zubreczki with two artists featured in the exhibition, Marcell Esterházy and Antal Lakner. The evening concludes with a DJ set by Lőrinc Borsos.

PROGRAMME

17:00 | Contemporary Perspectives – a subjective guided tour with Imre Para-Kovács

What does a writer and radio host who has spent decades observing and commenting on social and cultural phenomena see in the world of Black Mirror? Imre Para-Kovács guides visitors through the exhibition from his own perspective, using the artworks as starting points to reflect on the present and the future, technology and society, and everything that unfolds between the two.

Imre Para-Kovács is a writer, journalist, editor and radio host. In his writing and public appearances, he reflects on contemporary social and cultural phenomena from his characteristically ironic and critical perspective.

18:00 | Visions of the Future – Dávid Zubreczki in conversation with artists Antal Lakner and Marcell Esterházy

The built environment is a direct imprint of social structures: idealistic visions of how we might live together can, over the decades, turn into structures that constrain our everyday lives. The memory and layered histories of urban spaces permeate our present – but what kind of future did we imagine a few decades ago, and what kind of future do we find ourselves living in today? How can creative interventions in the urban fabric reshape the way we understand and experience the city?

Dávid Zubreczki talks to Marcell Esterházy and Antal Lakner, two artists featured in the Black Mirror exhibition, about the ideas behind their works, technological and social change, and real and imagined futures.

Marcell Esterházy is a visual artist who primarily works with family and found archival materials. Since 2005, he has explored the private history of the Esterházy family, many episodes of which are intertwined with Hungarian and wider European history. His intermedia works make extensive use of references to private archives and related public documents, newspaper clippings and objects, while quotation and appropriation recur as key artistic strategies. He graduated from the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2003 and completed a master’s degree at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Marseille (ESBAM) in 2004.

Antal Lakner is a visual artist, recipient of the Munkácsy Prize and the Perika Prize, founder of the Téreltérítés Working Group, and Associate Professor at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Working at the intersection of reality and fiction, his conceptual works and projects both integrate art into everyday environments and challenge conventional notions of the artwork and established modes of viewing by transforming institutional spaces.

Dávid Zubreczki is an architectural writer and one of Hungary’s best-known popular commentators on architecture and urban culture. His work brings together questions of architecture, the urban environment, culture and everyday life in an accessible and engaging way.

19:00–20:00 | Doomsayer II. (DJ act in two parts)

The performance division of Lőrinc Borsos presents: Doomsayer II. (DJ act in two parts)

Lőrinc Borsos is a fictional artist, the collaborative artistic hybrid of János Borsos and Lilla Lőrinc, born in Budapest in 2008.

Give him the Lamborghini! (Urus excluded!)

VENUE: Exhibition space, 2nd floor

Participation in the programmes requires a programme ticket or pass. Tickets are available online or on site at the Ludwig Museum ticket desk. Capacity is limited.