Kata Geibl was born in 1989 in Hungary. She studied photography in Budapest at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Finland. Her work is focused on humanity, collective memory and the ambiguities of the photographic medium. More recently, Kata has exhibited in group shows in Budapest and became a member of the young Artists’ and Photographers’ Association. She presented her most recent series, Sisyphus, at the Unseen Amsterdam festival. In 2018 she received the Photography Scholarship of the Association of Hungarian Photographers and won the emerging talent Carte Blanche Students Award founded by Paris Photo.
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus tricked Death by trapping Thanatos in chains. Once Thanatos was bound by chains, no one died on Earth, this is why Sisyphus was punished to roll a tremendous rock up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity.
How we used to think about the world is changing radically every day. Religion is more commonly replaced by science. Society is flooded by images every day, seeking instant access to knowledge. Photography as a medium has the ability to capture everything in front of the camera. The machinery can see what the human eye is not capable of – distant galaxies, stars exploding, microscopic worlds, atom bomb detonation – all with the security of distance. Through the ubiquity of images we have entered a crisis of the real, believing we understand how the world functions without the inconvenience of first hand experience.
Sisyphus constructs an imaginary laboratory space that blurs the line between fact and fiction, placing explanations and endpoints in the hands of the reader. This body of work questions the automatic consumption and absorption of information in an image-driven culture. It denies the photographic as window to our world, instead urging the viewer to consider the dissemination of knowledge within our 21st century.
To view more of Kata Geibl’s work please visit her website.