RAYPAINTING^TM
by dorkandkozma
[Contact: Raypainting™ belongs to Dora Berkes in any case, pls contact her.]

Dora Berkes
Peter Kozma

Dorkandkozma

Dorkandkozma is a pseudonym for Dóra Berkes and Péter Kozma, two artists involved in fine and applied arts who have been working together since 1995. Raypainting is one of the pair’s joint artistic achievements, a technique they have developed over a number of projects since 1996. Painted on glass and projected onto buildings or various other objects, these images have been used by Berkes and Kozma as a substitute for large-scale canvas paintings. Raypainting is now a registered trademark of Dorkandkozma.

In addition to raypainting, Dorkandkozma have worked on the international contemporary art scene in a variety of forms. Their visual arts line includes paintings by Berkes and theatre set designs by Kozma. The young duo is also active in the international techno scene and has been in charge of visual and audio effects for various electronic music events.

The Frankhegy Festival of electronic music and contemporary art, organized by Dorkandkozma, and the musical accomplishments of DJ Dork (Dóra Berkes) have achieved recognition across Europe. Berkes and Kozma seek to establish a place for the budding avant-garde of intellectual electronic music in the existing framework of contemporary art. To achieve this goal, they have channeled their efforts into developing an international network of fellow artists, and so created an extensive art forum reaching across national and language barriers.

Raypainting

In recent years, painter Dóra Berkes and applied artist Péter Kozma have staged several joint art projects of non-traditional dimensions and in non-traditional exhibition venues. Most of their works are multimedia projects in which action, space, projected images and music are merged into vast artistic productions featuring active yet spontaneous audience involvement. Projecting images onto public buildings, architectural forms and elements of nature have led the artists to recognize, among other things, that the mode of expression offered by raypainting can function powerfully in various areas of creative art. Continuous exploration of roots and origins have enabled Berkes and Kozma to make artistic statements and propositions concerning urban and natural landscapes at various prominent locations in big cities and elsewhere. Highlighted spaces, as used by Dorkandkozma for greater emphasis, herald a new alternative reality in our age, when manual techniques continue to create novel transvisual effects, despite the general belief that they are too slow and obsolete.

Raypainting is the poetry of light - a special kind of visual frottage, stone-washing, and mimicry rolled into one. As an independent genre, raypainting constitutes a clearly defined and important phenomenon.The basic concept itself is nothing new. Creating images with projectors has been a widely used method in stage set design for a long time. Raypainting, however, is more than just a simple trick deployed to create grand images. Improving on traditional slide show techniques, Dorkandkozma use powerful stage projectors to illuminate glass paintings, which combine with the textural properties of the surface carrying the projected image to form composite works of art. The pictures are painted by Berkes after a site survey and a planning phase, which is done in cooperation with Kozma. The imaging process, as implemented by raypainters, has crystallized into something close to alchemy, as Berkes’s pictures contain not only paint and liquid chemicals but also glass particles and other solid additives on top of the glass surface. Paint is spread onto the glass in several layers. Instead of using fast industrial methods such as homogenizing chemicals, Berkes creates complex chemical and mechanical effects by means of lengthy manual techniques. These consist of carefully planned and spontaneous elements, with the characteristic properties of traditional paintings becoming the pigments of a mixed visual imaging technique. The creative process begins with a site survey of the venue and detailed planning. Each painting is designed to harmonize with the dominant features of the venue and its surroundings, and is custom-made for the audience and the event itself. When staging an exhibition, the artists use several projectors and paintings, which meld together and form raypainting images. Dorkandkozma deliberately insist on using nothing more than the basic projector kit, without additional accessories for moving pictures. The static images are so complex in themselves that viewers may need several hours to appreciate every detail. Raypaintings are further enriched by optical illusions, designed with the rules of human spatial perception in mind. The fairy-tale-like transformations of the exhibition space are a combined result of various factors: the geometry of various image layers and image planes, the laws of optics, and 3D objects projected into the picture.When projected on a large scale, paintings show identical features with the structures and factures of free object and landscape design. Minimalist in appearance and based on a palette of earthen colors, raypaintings interact with parts of the projection surface, much as if the details of artificial or natural landmarks induced interference with the contrasts and structural elements of the projected image. The enlargement of paintings results in a new level of aesthetic quality, which answers the Kantian definition of the Sublime. A traditional painting, tied to a medium such as oil and canvas, is transformed into a floating ray-image. Sense subsides into silence, giving way to another mode of perception.

Raypainting as a phenomenon (ray(o)painting) is closely related to all forms of artistic expression based on light projection. Its precursors include various art forms that endeavored to explore color and light relations, most notably the Rayogram, László Moholy-Nagy’s Light-Space Modulator, the Orphism movement or the mobile light sculptures of Nicholas Schöffer. All of these art movements sought to create a pure perceptional quality and were based on the optical/sensory/emotional impacts of a most insubstantial material: light.

Raypainting has taken a further step toward the alchemic depths of painting with pigments. When implemented, its
color palette, imagery and proportions constitute a visual mode of expression unique to Dorkandkozma. As a result of the joint planning phase (during which the artists consider several factors such as the light absorption properties of surfaces, the style of the venue or the special features of the environment) an art product that is essentially a painting is transcribed into a projection. As you take a stroll among the resulting “ray fabrics”, scenes of an organic Space Odyssey come into view. Raypainting is a mapping method used by its inventors to transfer 2D pieces of art into a new environment and thus create a completely different ambience. Every venue is a new challenge; it is in the planning phase that the various challenges posed by land art, by architecture, and by the extension of the modern rituals of festivals and partying, all become manifest at the same time. By blowing up images to a gigantic scale, even the smallest details of the texture and facture of paintings become alive in pictures measuring several hundred square meters. If humanly possible, the impact of art is even more powerful (original + enlarged) when art space is redefined to include people in motion and a scene made up of projected images. Inasmuch as the audience itself is integrated in the work (as opposed to walking around stationary pieces of art), the effect can be described as environmental, since the projected images are part of the observer’s environment. The resulting formation is a kind of non-specific ritual space, in which “dressed” architectural or natural surfaces shine in all their splendor.

The site of the Frankhegy Festival, which has been staged by Berkes and Kozma in the hills above Budapest for several successive years, becomes a meeting ground for self-appointed devotees of environment-shaping and the visual imprints of the modern world for a few days. The world of graffiti and a multitude of techno-mandalas made of industrial and household waste come to life to prepare the venue for painted visions to appear after dark: the slide show. The environmental setting of various events attracting the nomads of a Cyber Age likewise carries the suggestion of natural materials; above all, it simulates a deserted landscape, a choice of material reminiscent of plain, worn wood, organic factures. This exodus to Frankhegy is more than surprising, considering that the mode of expression dominating the festival presupposes a typically urban mindset. The atmosphere of the event is defined by an open, comprehensive, experimental and multimedia-oriented approach to art.

Major exhibitions:

Beambeings
Light art exhibition and happening with the new Raypainting tower at Matáv - Hungarian Telecom headquarters.
20th of December 2004 - 2nd of January 2005
The ligth art exhibition was projected on a 9500 m² /102.125 ft² surface, using Pani projectors with a capacity in total of 104.000 Watts and 1.380.000 ANSI-lumen. www.pani.com
The Raypainting tower was designed by Dorkandkozma and constructed by ATC. www.atc-truss.com

T-Mobile day
Budapest 2004
The Palace of Arts - introducing the T-Mobile brand in Hungary

PLASA
London 2004
Booth design by dorkandkozma, construction by ATC-truss.
Stand on Europe’s largest audiovisual trade show together with ATC and Pani.

Millenium Park Budapest - 1st of May
27th of April 2004 - 3rd of May 2004
A 20.000 m² painting celebrating the EU accession of Hungary.The raypainting exhibition was projected on a 20.000 m² / 215.000 ft² surface using Pani projectors with a capacity in total of 116.000 Watts and 1.540.000 ANSI-lumen

ACF in Bruxelles
Bruxelles 2003
Price winning stand at the audiovisual creative fair in Bruxelles

Larousse night at the University of Fine Arts of Paris
Paris 2003
Ecole National Superiore des Beaux Arts

Sziget Music Festival, Dance Arena, BAT Hungary Ltd.
Budapest 2002
Several thousand square meters of projected images formed an installation together with the environment and projection towers .

Window in the city
Budapest 2001/2002
As one of a series by Dorkandkozma, the projected image became a prominent element in the urban landscape.
Matáv Hungarian Telecom headquarters.

“Fashion on Ice,” sponsored by Hofstetter Event Management
Hotel Kulm, St. Moritz 2001
Idyll on an ice rink, illuminated by Raypainting™. Fashion show with skating models, with guests seated on round rugs in the foyer of Hotel Kulm. The Sun motif was the third free adaptation of the symbol of the town.

“New Year’s Electronic Dance Party,” sponsored by Energy GmbH
Convention Center, Zürich 2000/2001
Deconstruction of a public building by raypainting.

10th birthday of the legendary techno club Tresor, sponsored by Tresor Club
Tresor Club, Berlin 2001
Venue-specific raypainting featuring the logo of Tresor Club, a landmark in the history of techno in the 1990s. Viewed from Potsdamer Platz, the last downtown heap of ruins was shining through the night.

Reopening of the Swiss Embassy, sponsored by the embassy
Berlin 2001
The transubstantiation of Helmut Federle’s monolithically towering elevation relief

“La Nuit du Champagne,” sponsored by Pommery Champagne
Hotel Palace, St. Moritz 1999
The Sun motif was the first free adaptation of the symbol of the town

“Diamonds for the next Millenium,” sponsored by Gübelin Jewelry
Hotel Palace, St. Moritz Millennium 1999/2000
After their debut in 1999, Dorkandkozma were invited by Hotel Palace to stage one of Switzerland’s main attractions for the new Millennium. The Sun motif was the first free adaptation of the symbol of the town.

Frankhegy annual electronic music and art festival, since 1995
Budapest 2001
The foundations of a house, carved into the hillside, as interior and exterior

 

Other exhibitions:

Jeff Mills electronic dance party, sponsored by Katakomben
Katakomben, Zürich 1996

Swiss Raid Commando, 13th International Competition, sponsored by Hofstetter Event Management
Colombier, Switzerland 1997

Gourmet Festival St. Moritz, sponsored by Hofstetter Event Management
Lake of St. Moritz 1998

Prodega C&C Grand Opening, sponsored by Prodega shopping center
Crissier, Switzerland 1998

Unveiling the new Algida logo, sponsored by Algida Hungary
Municipal ice rink, Budapest 1998

Photos by :

Lenke Szilágyi
Zsolt Fekete
György Török
Zoltán Kovács
Endre Somogyi
András Végh
Peter Kozma

Photos copyright: Dorkandkozma