COVID-19 pandemic broke out just as our book was published in February 2020. All book launch events scheduled in US and Europe were canceled: Debrecen, Budapest, Vienna, Amsterdam, and New York starting in March 2020. Attention shifted to urgent priorities, the new pandemic reality effected us two authors differently, which was unfortunate, but real. The dedicated attention a book release requires, especially an intermedia book that we have planned to produce as immersive exhibitions, have met on once side and failed on the other. Physical exhibitions were no longer an option, but due to the intermedia nature of the book, it wouldn’t be a problem for us. While the online possibilities were rapidly opening up for many, it also created a frenzy especially in the US, bringing out the digital stone age of 2020. The sudden attention to 24/7 online functioning necessities created a tsunami of free-market competition heights and the vacuum of negligence lows, revealing the raw structures of economic dynamics. Except one exhibition in Take Care Gallery in Los Angeles, none of the planned exhibitions were realized in this toxic ocean of opportunism. Especially not in the immersive format we imagined to share our dynamic collaboration. The core concept of our book was accommodating one another as we co-regulated towards equilibrium, yet keeping our own autonomy. The US free-market tsunami was too strong for our book, while in Hungary the increasingly authoritative state regulations further deprived technological limitations, therefore traditional methods provided more presence.
Our book received soaring attention in Hungary, while remained known only in small circles in the US. While not as planned, it let us witness a unique phase-transition from within this rising presence and void absence, as the global crisis continued. The book therefore not only recorded our own creative dynamics of co-authoring during the journey between continents and disciplines. The access and visibility of the book also reveals structural factors that drive deeper dynamics.
The only English press available about the book is an interview was written in Hungary: Interview – 9th October, 2020 János Áfra & Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga: Reading is always misreading
The pandemic marked a turning point in digitization, with the U.S. and Hungary taking sharply contrasting paths.
For the U.S., it was the moment to act, leveraging the crisis to implement cutting-edge digital innovations like immersive visualizations, which integrated artists and designers into tech-driven industries, fostering creativity and economic growth. The private sector’s agility and robust digital infrastructure turned challenges into opportunities, but at a cost—creating a vacuum driven by toxic competition and a neglect of broader responsibilities in the race for urgent success. This environment, driven not by the demands of digitization but by the crisis itself, served as a disguise for maintaining institutional power by elevating new, compliant actors who prioritized adherence to corporate directives over broader responsibilities or innovation.
In Hungary, however, limited digital infrastructure and uneven readiness hindered similar progress, breeding hesitation and fear around digital implementation. This paralysis left decisions predominantly in the hands of the state, focusing narrowly on immediate public sector needs rather than fostering a broader, market-driven digital ecosystem. While the U.S. grappled with neglect born of competitive pressure and corporate obedience, revealing an underlying hierarchy disguised as progressive liberal change, Hungary’s challenges stemmed from top-down neglect, reflecting the state’s inability to empower its citizens and markets. These differences underscore how infrastructure, governance, and societal dynamics shape the outcomes of crisis-driven innovation.
Attempts to resist the waves of the tsunami in the US
At the time of publication János was working at University of Debrecen in Hungary and I was working at Wellesley College in the US. As the pandemic shut down started, we both dedicated our attentions to the local urgency, working with students, and as time allowed also attend to the many other works we do. In the US, the attention was coming always in relation to something else, the crisis, technology, teaching, methodology, not a dedicated focus on the book and the co-authors alone. In the meanwhile a healthy dose of attention, frequent critical reviews and interviews were published in Hungary. To offset the lack of presence here in the US, I decided to provide context for our work, which is absent in the Northeast. I hired a literary translator to translate two important reviews that are full of references and connections that can give an entry-point to anyone new to the Eastern-European art and literary scene. One of the articles “Termékenység mint egyetértés” was written by Bálint Szombathy, a key figure in Hungarian avant-garde: “I been waiting for a production like this for a long time.” The other one is Csehy Zoltán: A félreértés alap responds to the form-function dynamics of language and the arts: “After the carnival of meaning comes the fast of misunderstanding. After the carnival of meaning comes the fast of misunderstanding. If the virtue of clear speech builds a temple, the original sin of diffusion of meaning immediately attaches a chapel to it.” The translations were never finished as the translator also dedicated her time and energy to pandemic related response work, in her case, supporting the 2020 election. The 30 copies that barely managed to shipped to the US just before the shut down, have been sitting on my shelf in Wellesley, MA. In the US, the physical book itself remained mainly absent.
Not comparable to the Hungarian reception of the press, the US presence of our work continues within artist talks, panels, and most importantly in pedagogy. On a very special occasion we exhibited the book to the public, for the first time in the US at Take Care Gallery. We wish the situation would allow us to share our work in the US literary scene and make the planned exhibitions possible. Until then, the simultaneous presence and absence of our book continues to record some of the most unseen dynamics of this torn reality.
Áfra, J., & Szegedi-Varga, Z. (2020). Termékeny félreétés / productive misreadings. Alföld Alapítvány : Méliusz Juhász Péter Könyvtár.
British Library, London WorldCat, Wellesley College Library LibCat, National Széchényi Library OSZK.