Randomroutines

Work exhibited in the Trade Fair Palace:

Fence-Scape I–VIII / 2013–2024 / installation / 8 sculptures (160 × 190 × 30 cm) / steel / courtesy of the artists, Péter Küllői, Judit Reszegi, Andrea Dénes and Árpád Balázs, and Péter Bencze

Tamás Kaszás (lives in Szigetmonostor, b. Dunaújváros (Hungary), 1976) and Krisztián Kristóf (lives in Budapest, b. Budapest (Hungary), 1976) collaborate as the artist duo Randomroutines. In their work Fence-Scape, they imagine different stories of what might happen in the future. The city is in flames, while on the fields two people are collecting the harvest. The water level is rising. Wild animals are set free. Where should we run? Is the forest a safe place? What borders, what obstacles will we need to overcome?

The artists are interested in looking into the tensions between humans and the environment. They imagine a world after collapse, after things have fallen apart. Fence-Scape is made from welded rebar steel, a material with many uses. Rebar stands for reinforcing bar and is used to strengthen concrete. During the socialist era, prefab housing (paneláky) was built with this material. Rebar was also used to create large wall drawings in public space. Artists bent and welded it into pictures showing optimistic scenes to educate people and promote socialism. In villages, people used rebar in a more DIY (do-it-yourself) way. They welded decorative fences, window grids and flower racks. This was their creative response to the lack economy during socialism.

Randomroutines sees DIY welding as a form of folk art and uses it to tell their own stories. Fence-Scape mixes the style of educational wall drawings with the do-it-yourself, rural use of rebar. Its form resembles village fences, but also police crowd control barriers. In doing so, it suggests possible future unrest.