Petra Szemán
Where is the boundary between real and fictional landscapes
About their distance
Commentary
A given place may be a holy site for someone.
Recently, touring sites from cartoons and TV dramas is being called a “pilgrimage,” and in the eyes of the pilgrims, the landscapes seen in the videos and the real landscapes may appear to overlap each other.
Petra Szemán, a Hungarian who has been deeply impacted by Japanese animation, has created a number of video works that blur the worlds of fantasy and reality.
In her works, a character known as “Yourself” modeled on the real Szemán rides a train, moving through intertwined landscapes of a variety of media, such as cartoons, CG, live-action video and photos.
These might be nothing less than the day-to-day landscapes of contemporary people, who spend their times in trains immersed in the story worlds of comics or cartoons on their smartphones and then look up to catch a glimpse outside the window.
Moreover, there are infinite, still unseen hidden potentials in the places where the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, like these sacred sites.
Where are your sacred sites?
Profile
Petra Szemán
Born in Hungary in 1994. Creates video works using landscapes reminiscent of anime or video games. She looks for how memories and our self-images are formed in contemporary society, enveloped as it is by fiction. Finalist in the 2022 The Arts Foundation Futures Awards. Photo : Aira Miyawaki / NTT Inter Communication Center [ICC]
