György Jovánovics:
PARCEL 301 – MEMORIAL TO THE MARTYRS OF THE 1956 UPRISING 1989-92
In 1989, the construction of the memorial dedicated to the martyrs of the
1956 uprising was started on the basis of the plans of György Jovánovics,
the one successful applicant among many others. Afterwards the artist
reproduced the historic experiences of the opening-up of the mass grave,
the process of the construction and the accomplished memorial on a CD-ROM
called PARCEL 301, which he presented at the Venice Biennial in 1995.
The CD-ROM is made up of three parts-the "Impressions" of the entrance
of the Rákoskeresztúr cemetery, where the memorial is
located, the process of the construction called "Genius loci", and a
"Close Reading" of the memorial based on its spatial arrangement and
subsequent symbolic meaning-also including an interview with the author.
Jovánovics´s work is clearly arranged, easy to navigate,
and is almost entirely composed of documentary video inserts, and what
is more, it manages to reproduce glimpes of historic significance supported
by sublime baroque music. There is just one question to it: do we witness
the documentation of an important historic event and through it recall
the past-all presented on a CD-ROM in a subtle, refined, sensitive fashion,
or do we see an independent work of art for which the 1989 event is
but a pretext?
