Szilvia Mondel

​The gaze of Science and Technology

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

Scientific visualizing technology reveals a new world beyond the limits of human imagination. Images, generated by electronic imaging devices showing multiple dimensions of life, beyond optical laws. My paintings explore the visual language of scientific images generated by technological visualization methods.

 

In our rapidly changing world, technology has become omnipresent and embedded in daily life. Technology is universal and access to it gives access to power and the ability to control our world and nature. Life processes are animated by the intervention of technological devices. An ever increasing number of X-ray devices, Nano-and micro technology scanning machines, such as CTI- and MRI machines for medical, health care and security purposes provide images now envisioning a whole new universe. Here we are stepping into another dimension of an unknown world in which Wizards of Technology enable us to see and experience the world as never before.  

 

Technology possesses the power for people to create their own fortune and a happiness that could be within everybody’s reach. In this world the artificial is accepted as “natural” and we are captivated by the love of synthetic substitutes.  Looking through the ‘digital eye’, we are able to see sharper images than the human eye could ever do full of new forms and colors. What we are seeing is more beautiful than real life and the colors are more sparkling than we ever could imagine. It is another dimension where colors don’t age. Pink or flesh colors are non-existent. All colors are unnaturally saturated. Normally soft glaring colours are blinding as they become addictive.  Everything has now become synthetic. There is no death and no need for sorrow anymore. Technological life is everlasting, emotionless, always bright and happy; it is a life drawn from earlier experiences of people’s insatiable appetite for science-fiction fantasies in which all barriers are obliterated. This is the dazzling kaleidoscopic man-made universe of the digital promise land.

 

This futuristic Utopia sounds beautiful, sparkling and perfect, but it has a macabre downside. It is not only a beautiful new world we are tapping into, but it is also an uncanny world. The fancy bright colors of the digital synthetic world are not only sketching a bright new world but are also creating dangers, that remain hidden from the naked eye. In it, we discover weapons, viruses, cancer cells and deadly diseases. Whilst we are looking right into the eye of death, we envision the dangers that are threatening and trying to intrude into our world. It is a promising new world, but frightening as well. Future technology implicates life, but it is a life filled with danger and death. Technology provides us with a promise of a synthetic eternity, which is itself artificial and therefore dead. It is the world of the living death.

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

How how airport scanners check your bag is safe to fly
Link to read article

​

Synthetic Images

 

My fascination for digitally generated images started in 2006 when I was traveling from the Netherlands to my old country; Hungary. At the airport my luggage was scanned by an X- ray machine. This was the first time when I saw my luggage- clothes and personal accessories- in a different landscape and colors than I am used to seeing them. The effect was shocking and bizarre; for the first time I experienced my belongings in a completely new dimension and spectrum of colors, like I had never seen before. 

 

This experience made a deep impression on me and inspired me to elaborate on this theme. Since 2008 I have been developing a unique technique inspired by the effect of scientific imaging. ‘Synthetic’, in this case, indicates the use of a color spectrum of electronically generated images. In my paintings, the shadow and light effects are unique. In the paintings are no natural shadows naturally cast by the sun. I work on the surface of a painting in thin layers, from light to dark and thus systematically engrave patterns in the liquid synthetic paint. This technique has a ‘computer screen’-effect, much like when we are looking at a TV screen image where the image is lit from the back by electronic led’s. The colors in my paintings are synthetic looking, resembling X- ray scans of luggage at airports, or MRI and CT scans of living organisms and body cells.  My paintings resemble the digital imagination and envision a new strange world which is fascinating; beautiful and glaring but also macabre at the same time.