To Ildikó Horváth (1986), the world is an entanglement of entities: people, objects, and thoughts are all connected to each other. At the same time they are constantly subject to change. As an artist, Horváth is specifically interested in how these changes come about. For instance: How can sound cause a physical reaction? And how might that work in reverse? Horváth’s installations express this fluid reality through a combination of tactile sculptures, digital technologies, and performances.
At Prospects, Horváth is presenting the installation centre OFF gravity (2023), a work combining ceramics and sound technology. When the round ceramic shapes are slowly set in motion, the sensors pick up on this and send a signal to a computer. This computer then translates these movements into a soundscape. The spectators are allowed to cautiously activate the work themselves, but at set times the sculptures will also be used in performances by Melody Nolan and Niek Vanoosterweyck.
“Led by movements, the computer creates a soundscape that I could never create with analogue means. At the same time I try to use technology in such a way that the end result is never conspicuously digital. I always return to the analogue space,” Horváth relates. With centre OFF gravity she is specifically interested in how sound affects our experience of gravity. While sound generally does not play a role in our sense of balance, in the artist’s own experience sound does affect how we find balance: “You will, for instance, cycle differently while wearing headphones.” In an intuitive and poetic way the artist thus combines seemingly unrelated elements.
Text: Milo Vermeire
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang