Discover CODE's unique entrance installation

Perhaps the term "light sculpture" was first mentioned in connection with us by Dr. Márton Orosz, director of Vasarely Museum in Budapest: in a study he wrote about us when we were just starting our artistic work, as he was also looking for the right classification for us, and he named our work in such a way that it could even become a completely new, trendsetting movement in the future. Interestingly, however, starting in 2024, we will indeed begin to create light sculptures in addition to our wall paintings, which can be placed in space, can be walked around, and offer a different view from every angle.

We are both great admirers of Vasarely's art, who is considered the greatest figure and father of OP Art. Of course, in different ways, but Vasarely also used light, as evidenced by his objects that reflect light onto the wall or his experiments with shadows. Hungarian light art has always been outstanding in global terms, and here we come to the name of György Kepes, whose work and philosophy stand out as the most exemplary examples. We would place ourselves somewhere between OP Art and Light Art, as both can be found in our art.

Light is one of the most exciting substances, immediately attracting everyone's attention and influencing our mood; we derive our life force from it. Painters work tirelessly on their canvases to represent light, while we, in turn, compose with light itself.

For us, light represents the material through which we express a composition or theme. That is why it was important from the very beginning that we try to present, both in our wall works as well as in our light sculptures today, only pure light, with nothing else to distract the viewer. No one should be able to see a screw or a support structure in the work; only the appearance of "pure light" is acceptable to us.

Another important thing was that we wanted to display light in such a way that it would be visible indirectly, i.e. not directly from the light source or LED points. We believe that these essential characteristics create a kind of "mystical effect" in the viewer, and since humans are curious by nature, everyone tries to find an explanation for the spectacle and its creation.

 How does geometry relate to creation?

OP Art, or optical art, uses a system of lines and basic geometric shapes such as squares, circles, and triangles, and draws them according to a predetermined plan, depending on the actual compositional goal. Its origins can be traced back to the constructivist movement, so the use of geometry and geometric shapes can also be traced back to this movement in our case.

In our case, this is made more complex by the fact that already in the design phase—when we are creating a graphic or drawing—we have to think in multiple dimensions. We must be able to anticipate how reflections will alter the image and, conversely, starting from a desired visual effect, determine in reverse what kind of two-dimensional drawing needs to be created so that, due to the physics of mirrors, it will produce the intended appearance through reflections.

This is even more complicated in our latest works, i.e. our light sculptures, as here we can view the composition from six directions, and we can see reflections in every direction. We have to create the work in such a way that, knowing these characteristics, we can foresee the expected result. Of course, even today there are topics that surprise us, usually in a positive direction, and these often show us a new direction.

Basically, we also use geometric representation, which is characteristic of artistic drawing, but we also look at each of our lyrical works individually, such as our most popular Iris series, a small part of which we have also incorporated into the CODE facade, or our latest series, "Future landscape," , in which we create the colors themselves not with light but with pigments, for the first time in our oeuvre.

What sources of inspiration do you draw on, what inspires your creations?

Our work is influenced by many different environmental stimuli (natural phenomena, philosophical thoughts, events we have experienced), which may originate from our immediate surroundings or from the wider world. Beyond these, we would like to highlight two names from among the great artists of the past: Victor Vasarely and György Kepes. Among contemporary artists, we would like to highlight Iván Navarro, who was born in Chile and also deals with infinite space and reflections, but his thematic and lighting techniques are completely different from our understanding.

Musical impulses (Hans Zimmer, Ludovico Einaudi, Audiomachine, etc.) and books and lectures by scientists on scientific topics are also very important to us (Stephen Hawking, Tesla), science fiction books (Isaac Asimov), or even films on such topics (Interstellar).

If I had to highlight one specific work that had a major impact on me in the recent past, it would probably be György Kepes's 1973 work Izzó Oszlopok (Columns), which was exhibited at LAM Budapest and and which is actually a recreation of the original work presented in Boston.

The relationship between science and art is what Kepes researched throughout his life, and it is also something that greatly interests us.

Was the installation at the entrance to CODE created specifically for CODE? What was the inspiration behind it, how did what we see outside come about?

The artwork created for the entrance to CODE is by far our largest and most complex work to date, and it is also our first community space and outdoor work, so when we received the commission, we had our work cut out for us, especially since we weren't given much time. We started working on it at a time when we had just opened a major exhibition, and then, at the request of our American gallery, we also had to prepare three sculptures for the 2024 Art Miami exhibition.

The installation on the facade was, of course, created specifically for this location and theme, but we had to tune into it first. Our works are usually created from our own internal inspiration and motivation, but here we had to take many other things into account, and we wanted to incorporate them. The primary consideration, which we couldn't reasonably ignore, was the special shape of the building; we really liked the hexagonal shape. We thought that we had to respect the building, adapt to it, and approach the creation of the design and composition with the appropriate sensitivity, so there was no question that our work would also be composed of hexagons, as we had already seen an example of this much earlier, even at the beginning of our work.

Another important consideration was that we wanted to somehow incorporate the new name of the building, as there is no sign on the building itself, and our creation could provide an excellent opportunity for this. Of course, we tried not to display the letters directly, but rather to highlight their contours and surroundings.

In the fifth work, which is actually the letter "D," , we incorporated IRIS, the most successful work, with its small details, which we wanted to combine with visual arts visual arts, as the theme of the Digital Center of Experiences.

What we also wanted to show in our work was the guiding principles behind the building's new function. There have been examples of this before, in one or two of our works, where we encoded certain messages in the number system 2, but here we complicated this by using empty and full hexagons for encoding instead of the digits 0 and 1. Encryption itself, as a computer language, was the digital experience center of the building, and is thus also connected to digital light art, but the messages are also connected to the new function.

In addition to embedding our names in the work as creators—a kind of subtext -  the following guiding principles appear in the work: Technology and Art, Digital Art, Attraction, Exhibition Space, Education, Community.

Have you ever had to come up with a strange or unexpected solution at work that you never thought would work?

In short: continuously...

To elaborate, we constantly have ideas, not all of which will naturally become creations, but if we both find the idea very good, we work tirelessly and without sparing any effort to make the project a reality.

To give a specific example, we decided back in 2022, based on the results of our experiments, we decided that we had to try to break out of the mold and present a completely new visual world. This would have meant using embossed glass, but we couldn't find this material anywhere. In the end, we obtained the embossed glass with great difficulty (it is important to note that we are talking about glass here, and not plastic plexiglass solutions), only then did we realize that we would not be able to integrate it nicely into our system so that it would not be visible, which is something we always emphasize. We wanted a glass sheet, or even a plastic sheet, as a base material with a bulge in the middle, but such a material does not exist, so we had to use our network of contacts, which we have built up over the years,and then we put this very difficult and expensive raw material through glass processing. Fortunately, we managed to find someone who has a special distortion furnace and agreed to take on this thankless task. The process is so delicate that only one of the ten pieces of glass survived the physical firing. Finally, our creation was completed and presented at Art Miami in December 2023, with great success.

How do you think technology will shape the future of art?

The interplay and collaboration between technology and art is an exciting topic. We also draw a lot of inspiration from technological possibilities and the scientific world. Obviously, advances in lighting technology offer many new opportunities in the field of light art, where there is still plenty of potential, but light artists working with a "mapping" technique, both in terms of projectors and the software used to control them.