Untitled - Székelyföldi Grafikai Biennále

The Symbiosis of Tradition and Innovation
The genres of visual art undergo a particular, interactive-interrelational metamorphosis. This process
is especially true in the case of the visual definition of multigraphics, it can almost directly fructify the
achievements of the new media, with the help of the digital printing technique. The function of the technical
multiplication of the image allows a greater accessibility of information, - at the moment the manipulative and
aggressive influence of the excessively flooding images seems to be exerted with superlative intensity. Taking
control over our conscience, the created code of images (system of visual signs) almost entirely covers (takes
hold of) our existence, our everyday lives. Multigraphics is capable of – we can say now without exaggerating
– reflecting the changes in the social significance of the image with the accuracy of a seismograph. One of
the ideas of multigraphics that differentiated it from the other genres was the democratic dissemination of
art in the 20th Century. The virtual image changed the role of multiplying graphics; as a printed image the
materiality of the artwork maintained its importance, although in the case of the purely digital image printing
as such has a merely representational role. In the era of twists-and-turns in image representation also the
genre of graphic art has surpassed and lost its refraining boundaries: the conveyor (representational form) of
the image generated by the new media can now be freely chosen by the artist, the mode of representation
of the technical image is now integrated in the mode of expression. It has become quite difficult to detach
traditional image-creation (generation) from digital visual logic: it is adopted unobservedly by all users and it
affects the evolution of the various genres of fine art. The term media design does not convey a certain style,
but much rather it is the visual product of the creative freedom (of action) within the framework ensured by
the different programmes. The creative artist is able to create his/her own individual virtual imagery (world
of images) from the mechanical system, no matter if we are dealing with applied or autonomous art. Printed
graphics exists by means of the material conveyor, therefore the virtual, informative imagery, the immaterial
conceptuality is also preserved in its printed form, in its physical presence. By providing feedback to the
material sensitivity (receptivity), the digital image also becomes the instrument of multiplicative graphic art.
Consequently, the organizers of the Biennial have been very resourceful in adopting the decision to include
also a freely employable experimental category in their Call for Application, beside the traditional art genres.
We see a tendency to adopt complex printing solutions using contrasting or mixing techniques in the case of
manually created works.
The changes of half a century – lifestyle aspects, cultural approaches, scientific world visions, ideological
concepts – are concentrated, their presence often hardly decodeable on a sheet of paper. The artistic strivings
ands styles of half a century are present hand-in-hand within the individual interpretation, there being no
Nemzetközi grafikai szemle / Contemplaţii grafice / Graphics review
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