György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science

Documentary by Márton Orosz

Hungary/Canada

The history of media art, unfolding in the mid-20th century, is brought to life on the cinema screen through the animated life of the painter, photographer, designer, writer, and polymath György Kepes, a shapeshifter of modernism and the man who coined the phrase "visual culture.” As an esteemed professor at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and the founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Kepes aimed to bridge the gap between the technical and social realms through the guiding principles of "interthinking” and "interseeing,” fostering a deeper connection between the two spheres.

He crafted pieces that pushed the boundaries of human perception while striving to forge a shared, participatory artistic language that reimagined civic spaces as cybernetically controllable systems. Living in an era hinting at the imminent dominance of artificial intelligence and anticipating the flood of optical stimuli, Kepes managed to transcend skepticism towards technology. The film presents him not only as a seminal artist, educator, and thinker, but also as someone whose belief in „optical democracy” spurred him to pose the pivotal question: "Can technology be used to protect us from technology itself?”

Trailer:  György Kepes. Interpretando Arte + Ciencia (György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science)