Drozdik, Orshi: Dystopia Infinite: Black Mirror 1 (1984)

gelatine silver print
Gift of the artist, 2004
Keywords

Orsolya Drozdik belongs to the second generation of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde movement and was member of the Rózsa Circle, which played a key role in the art of the ‘70s. Her oeuvre examines the female roles, the biological, social and political aspects of identity and body, so it’s a rare Hungarian version of American and Western European feminism while the other pillar of her work is the writings of the postmodern theorists of deconstruction. In the two photographs of the series Infinite dystopia entitled Black Mirror I–II. you can see a part of a child’s head preserved in formalin for educational purposes. Recalling her installation series Adventure in the Technical Dystopia (1984–92) provides a guide to the interpretation of both photographs. Dystopia is an antonym of utopia or simply an anti-utopia projecting worst-case scenarios and an unbearable future world. Drozdik has visited the world’s science-historical museums for a decade, researching how science considered as something objective has strengthened male superiority since the Enlightenment by emphasizing or marginalizing characteristics and how these fixed definitions have been shaping our views on identity and social roles since then. The photographic documents of the research carried out in the museums, were summarized in a series of photographs Infinite dystopia. The segment seen in the two silver gelatine prints highlights the role of science in maintaining power structures and negative stereotypes. Krisztina Üveges