History/Reality #4: From The Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet

Description

Curated by Dr Judit Bodor and Dr Roddy Hunter as the final event of 'Curating The Digital Attic' an RSE funded research network project. Hosted at Museum of Fine Arts Budapest and presented in association with archivuminternetwork: 30 Years of artpool.hu.

This event took two contrasting visions of the internet as a starting point to explore a range of approaches by artists, archivists, curators, and historians. In 1998, Anna Balint envisioned the web as a 'garden of communication', an open, collaborative space shaped by human interaction. Nearly three decades later, Bogna Konior reimagines it as a 'dark forest, ' characterised by opacity, automation, and increasingly fraught navigation and shaped by “a cosmic war machine, teeming with existential tension, nascent AI cults, and deceptive superintelligences.” Presentations included by Elly Clarke [Dragging the Archive] and Flóra Barkóczi [netartdothu], as well as a new live performance by Viktória Monhor.

Additionally, as the final event in the History/Reality series, Judit Bodor & Roddy Hunter launched The Digital Attic Archive, following a three-year research into reconnecting the internationally dispersed artist's archive and self-historicisation project initiated by artist Pete Horobin in Dundee, Scotland, in 1980. The series title derives from Pete Horobin’s 1970s performance, which explores how artists’ archives–particularly those emerging from time-based and networked practices–survive in post-digital contexts.

Impact: Invitation from Scottist Artist Archives Network to present the research as a case study for their website and as part of an event in October 2026.

Period	21 May 2026
Event type	Seminar
Location	Budapest, HungaryShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International