DISTORTIONS is not a singular, all encompassing statement exhibition, but rather a collection of compelling works by artists we collaborate with. Thought provoking, often prescient, and relevant to this moment of technologically assisted creative processes, the artworks in the show represent various approaches to the complexities of contemporary world. Traditionally, artists have altered reality to reveal their own 'truths'. Art, as a mirror of the world, has always operated via distortion both literally and metaphorically. With the nonstop development of analog and digital tools in the 20th century, access to new technologies became more democratized. Yet it is always the artists that are on the forefront to adapt the new tools, subvert them, push boundaries, expose biases and limitations of the medium and explore its creative potential.

The exhibition titled Alarm Chain presented in the space of acb Attachment builds upon data visualization that relies on Albert-László Barabási’s identity, active simultaneously as scientist and artist. Barabási and his research team examined emergencies and disasters that occurred between January 2007 and January 2009, with a specific focus on their communication aspects. The complex diagrams on display in the exhibition space were generated from the mobile phone data of eyewitnesses present on the scene of these events. The primary question of the study was to determine how many times a witness or survivor of a tragic event calls someone on their mobile phone. The diagrams, originally created as graphs (complex networks), were reinterpreted by Barabási as embroidery patterns, converting the previous data visualizations into textile forms. The BarabasiLab exhibition now presents the works related to this project.

BINÁLÉ, located in Budapest, organized an outstanding collection of artworks from around the world to explore the idea of “queering democracy” through the power of art for their 150th anniversary.