MIRROR-IMAGES

MAKYOH – the story, principle and specialities of the „MAGIC MIRROR”

In the first half of the XIX. century mirrors of japanese or chinese origin arrived to Europe. At the first glance, they seemed to be ordinary species, but if they were reached by parallel rays, they projected an images onto a farther surface.

On the background of the mirrors, a relief-like image can be seen, a projected picture, which most of the times portrays Buddha or Christ. The secret of the making of the magic mirror was preserved as a tradition. Numerous researcher dealed with its secret.

In 1879 Ayrton and Perry, researchers established, that the magic mirror phenomena is caused by the faint curves of surface, which is invisible to the naked eye. The convex and concave parts of the surface, thereby make a pattern of rays and they focus or defocus it, so does the realized image be formed.

AThis Special „mirror”-phenomenon fits well to my earlier cut black wooden tablet, on which it is also the light-reflection is the key of the works. The colour black, which subsumes light, on the cut wood reflects this light due to the structure of the cuts. The place changings and the grazing show the different light statuses.

To this magic mirror construction, I made a Mirror-Image, which opens questions while confronting each-other. Art is the image of life or punctually the opposite: life mirrors art. What is the real chance for a new artwork to become, the „original” picture or the reflected „immaterial” surface? What is that I see in the mirror? What does an artwork mean? Which one is the real picture?

Mirroring. Undulation. Changes in the picture and in ourselves. Encoring. Arriving. And where?  To a space in front of the mirror or to a space back of the mirror? However:

Every instance will become lightly intelligible in the darkness.

Special Thanks to Ferenc Riesz, Imre Lepsényi, Márton Bíró.