György Kepes — Massimo Vignelli — William Klein — John Powell — Robert Horvitz — Philip Morrison — Michael Naimark — Varujan Bogoshian — Nicholas Negroponte — Lowry Burgess — Elsbeth Juda — Hattula Moholy-Nagy — Gerald Holton — Peter Mcmahon — Imre Kepes — Michel Zalewski — Alfonso Carrara — Bea Takeuchi — Leland Rice — Kiyoko A. Lerner — Joshua Reichek — András Kepes — Saul Bass — Howard York — Robert C. Morgan — Juliet Kepes Stone — Robert Murphy — Albert-László Barabási — Dr. Alva Matthews Solomon — Maurice K. Smith — Michio Ihara — Bill Parker — Alan Sonfist — Bob Lewis — Julian Beinart — Nishan Bichajian — Datuk Lim Chong Keat — Wayne Andersen — Ute Meta Bauer — Frank Malina — Robert Whitman — A. Michael Noll — Julie Martin — Friedrich St. Florian — Antoni Muntadas — Scott Fisher — Vassilakis Takis — Wen-Ying Tsai — Roger Malina — Hans Haacke — Julio Le Parc — Zeren Earls
Canada / Hungary, 2013–2014
98 minutes
György Kepes (1906–2001) was a Hungarian-American painter, photographer, designer, theorist, educator, and impresario, recognized today as a largely overlooked precursor of media art. He is widely credited with popularizing the concept of "visual culture" at Mid-Century. Kepes’ name became synonymous with the intersection of art, science, and technology, largely due to his visionary program developed in the 1960s at MIT, where he founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). This institution encouraged collaborative creations between artists and scientists, fostering teamwork between humanists and natural scientists.
Kepes coined the term "interthinking" to describe his innovative approach, which brought together artists and engineers to address pressing public issues like ecological awareness, augmented reality, and adaptive design—concepts that were in their nascent stages at the time. His influence extended far beyond his artistic endeavors. From his early days working alongside Bauhaus protagonists in Europe, to his significant role in the U.S. art world (Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Boston), Kepes was an "enabler," a catalyst who empowered others to pursue shared goals. As an "active humanist," he spent his life advocating for media aesthetics grounded in the democratization of images.
The film’s director, Márton Orosz, is an art historian, curator, graphic designer and photographer. He is an internationally recognized Kepes scholar, and completed his PhD on the subject in 2014, at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. During his studies, he was, among others, a Terra Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., a György Kepes Fellow for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an ESKAS Fellow at the University Berne in Switzerland, an Insitute for Cultural Inquiry Post-Doctoral Fellow in Berlin, a Centre for Contemporary Art Curator-In-Residence in Singapore, and a Getty Research Institute Grantee in Los Angeles. Márton Orosz is the Curator of the Collection of Photography and Media Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest and the Acting Director of the Vasarely Museum in Budapest. He has curated Victor Vasarely. The Responsive Eye at the Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul, South Korea (2023), Time Landscape. Alan Sonfist and the Birth of Land Art (2014); Nathan Lerner: Photo-Eye (2012); Film Experiments Brought to Light (2014); Light Languages (2015) and Hungarian Artists and the Computer (2016). He was the co-curator of the first exhibition at the Light Art Museum (LAM) in Budapest. His documentary film was finished with the generous support received in 2019 from The Structurist Award, offered by the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. This is his first documentary film that was in development since 2008 as an independent research project.
MARCH 3, 2023
Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada
https://remaimodern.org/events-gatherings/special-screening-gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-and-science/
MARCH 29, 2023
Essentia Artis – Vigadó, Budapest, Hungary
https://www.mma.hu/muveszeti-hirek/-/event/10180/essentia-artis-%E2%80%93-egy-kulonleges-osszmuveszeti-seregszemle
JULY 9, 2023
Zsolnay Light Festival, Apollo Cinema, Pécs, Hungary
https://www.zsolnayfenyfesztival.hu/dinamic/letoltesek/zsff2023-map-min.pdf
SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
Budapest Classics Film Marathon, Urania Film Theater, Hungary
https://nfi.hu/budapesti-klasszikus-film-maraton-2023/vetitesek-2023/szekciok-2023/cinedokk-megtalalt-tortenetek/kepes-gyorgy-a-tudos-agyaval-a-festo-szemevel.html
SEPTEMBER 25, 2023
Sound And Vision Film And Technology Festival, New York, NY (USA)
https://www.soundandvisionfilmfestival.com/
OCTOBER 17, 2023
Alexandre Trauner Art/Film Festival, Szolnok, Hungary
https://www.ataff.hu/en/2023/home
OCTOBER 21, 2023
MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bartos Theater, MIT MediaLab, Cambridge, MA (USA)
https://act.mit.edu/event/marton-orosz-gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science/
OCTOBER 29, 2023
DA2 – Design, Art & Architecture Film Festival, Zagreb, Croatia
https://www.paripikule.com/2023-zagreb-da2ff-nagrade
NOVEMBER 18, 2023
Fundacja SPLOT’s „Kinematografizowanie awangardy” conference, Muzeum Fotografii w Krakowie
Cracow Museum of Photography, Cracow, Poland
http://www.fundacjasplot.org/aktualnosci/kinematografizowanie-awangardy-budapeszt-krakow-berlin
JANUARY 14, 2024
Blow-Up International Arthouse Film Festival, Chicago, IL (USA)
http://blowupfilmfest.com/2023/program.html
JANUARY 22, 2024
Electronic Imaging Symposium, San Francisco/Burlingame, CA (USA)
https://www.imaging.org/IST/IST/Conferences/EI/EI2024/EI2024.aspx
JANUARY 30, 2024
University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), Carsey Wolf Pollock Theater, Santa Barbara, CA (USA)
https://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock-events/cwc-docs-gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science/
https://www.ucsd.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=39735&subject=hum
FEBRUARY 2, 2024
Vasulka Kitchen, Brno, Czech Republic
https://vasulkakitchen.org/en/event/dernissage-and-film-screening-gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science
FEBRUARY 10, 2024
Reelhouses International Film Festival, Dayton, OH (USA)
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
https://mke.hu/vizualis_muveszet_tanszek/hirek/index.php?mid=AtNc4YOO4HCgUqzl9bA73L
MARCH 9, 2024
16. Budapest Architecture Film Festival (BAFF), Budapest, Hungary
https://filmnapok.kek.org.hu/en/portfolio/gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science/
MARCH 9, 2024
11. Milano Design and Architecture Film Festival, Milan, Italy
https://www.milanodesignfilmfestival.com/
MARCH 24, 2024
Architecture and Design Film Festival (a+dff), Winnipeg, Canada
APRIL 21, 2024
Edison International Film Festival, Chennai, India
MAY 10, 2024
Cinemateca de Bogotá – Festival de la Imagen, Bogotá, Colombia
https://festivaldelaimagen.com/en/portfolio-item/gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science/
MAY 15–17, 2024 (online stream)
Cumulus Budapest, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), Budapest, Hungary
https://cumulusbudapest2024.mome.hu/
JUNE 1, 2024
III. Hangszínhely Festival, Miskolc, Hungary
https://www.miskolcigaleria.eu/iii-hangszinhely-fesztival/
JUNE 5, 2024
Los Angeles, New Media Film Festival 2024, Los Angeles, CA (USA)
https://www.newmediafilmfestival.com/tag/gyorgy-kepes/
JULY 28, 2024
Convergence: Artistic Explorations from Nature to Society – collateral program, Taipei, Taiwan
https://artouch.com/art-views/art-exhibition/content-148072.html
AUGUST 1, 2024
Arts & Sciences – The Nature of Information / LASER Talks program, Telluride, CO (USA)
https://leonardo.info/civicrm/event/info%3Fid%3D913%26reset%3D1
SEPTEMBER 24, 2024
14 FICMA – Feria Internacional de Cine de Manizales, Manizeles, Colombia
https://www.redespiral.com/
SEPTEMBER 29, 2024
Tagus Art Association Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal
https://cinemafest.wixsite.com/taaff
OCTOBER 3, 2024
40. Paradise Film Festival (IMDb Certified Online Monthly Competition), Cologne, Germany
https://www.paradisepicturestudio.com/en/festival
OCTOBER 5, 2024
10. RAW Science Film Festival, Triad Theater New York, NY (USA)
https://www.rawsciencefilmfestival.com/2024-films
OCTOBER 6, 2024
Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide
Art Center College of Design, Ahmanson Theater, Pasadena, CA (USA)
https://pst.art/en/events/györgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science
https://www.artcenter.edu/connect/events/pst-art-weekend-NELA-pasadena.html
OCTOBER 12, 2024
The Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY (USA)
“Media Avant-Gardes: György Kepes and CAVS/MIT”
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/58265
OCTOBER 12, 2024
20. Giornata del Contemporaneo AMACI, Trieste, Italy
https://www.amaci.org/en/events/66fe93eef01c41ed37fd664b
OCTOBER 15, 2024
Wellfleet Preservation Hall, Wellfleet (Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA)
https://www.wellfleetpreservationhall.org/calendar
OCTOBER 19–20, 2024
WIP Arts and Technology Festival, Nicosia, Cyprus
https://2024wip.cyens.org.cy/exhibition/simulation-reality/gyorgy-kepes/
OCTOBER 20, 2024
B3 Festival of the Moving Image, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
https://b3festival.de/en/b3_festival/programme
https://vp.eventival.com/b3/2024/film-catalogue?view=compact&search=Kepes
OCTOBER 25, 2024
Windmill Film Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands
https://windmillfestival.my.canva.site/about
NOVEMBER 2, 2024
SciArt Santa Fe / Entropy Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (USA)
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/sciart-santa-fe-18223443362
NOVEMBER 22, 2024
China Dragon Awards – China International Conference of Science and Education Producers (CICSEP), Shanghai, China
http://www.cicsep.com/en/about/75.html
NOVEMBER 29, 2024
DART – 7ª edición del Festival de Cine Documental sobre Arte, Barcelona, Spain
DECEMBER 6, 2024
MasterDoc International Documentary Film Festival, Tbilisi, Georgia
https://www.livescreeningsfilmfestival.com/film/gyorgy-kepes-interseeing-art-science
MARCH 12, 2025
Rays of Barcelona (La Pedrera – Casa Milà), Barcelona, Spain
https://www.lapedrera.com/es?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=myb
Anna Zerouali
Interthinking the Arts and Sciences: György Kepes brought to life through new documentary
DAILY NEXUS, Santa Barbara, February 29, 2024
Steven Heller
The Daily Heller: György Kepes’ Conjoining of Art and Science is Celebrated in Documentary Film
PRINT (Magazine), October 11, 2023
Anikó L. Fábián
Kepes György, a látnok univerzuma (“György Kepes: The Universe of a Visionary”)
MAGYAR NEMZET, September 17, 2023
Beata Pozitiva
Kepes Icecream – The Light Symposium
TILOS RADIO, September 16, 2023
We tend to forget about the humanist aspect of those new art forms that came into existence in the wake of the cybernetic culture and technological advancement in the post-war era. The Hungarian-American painter, photographer, designer, theoretician, educator, and impresario, György Kepes (1906–2001) is often associated with the term “American Bauhaus.” First the assistant and then the collaborator of his compatriot, the constructivist painter, filmmaker, and media theoretician László Moholy-Nagy, Kepes gained access to the most influential circles of the European avant-garde movement already in the very beginning of his career. After his immigration to the US in 1937 he was appointed to the head of the Light Department of the New Bauhaus/School of Design in Chicago. There, he extended the aesthetics of the cameraless abstract photography terming his invention as “photodrawing” and “photopainting.” He had classes on drawing and publicity design, experimented with camouflage technologies, and started to write his textbook on visual education titled Language of Vision (1944). Based on his recognition as an artist–instructor in 1946 he was invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught design fundamentals to architecture students. György Kepes’ agency not only served as an important historical precursor and reference point for some contemporary phenomena that we use as a cliché today like “visual culture” or “new media art,” but his approach to integrating art into society aimed to create a new aesthetic for the civic space based on a collective sensory experience. Kepes borrowed the concepts of homeostasis and thermodynamics from the natural sciences as an analogy to describe the optimal conditions of living organisms and the correcting mechanisms inside the cybernetic systems. By doing so, his intention was to foster the integration of the synthetic and natural environment through technology with the purpose of regaining the “lost paradise” in our corroded man-made world. To make his case, in 1967 Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT to dovetail fellow artists with poetic vision, conceptual-minded scientists, and engineers possessing new arsenals of technology. The goal of this unusual teamwork was to collaboratively produce site-specific environmental works presaging climate awareness and the concept of the Anthropocene (e.g. Boston Harbor and Charles River projects, 1968–1972). While the pivotal exhibition Kepes curated in 1951 at MIT titled The New Landscape in Art and Science lifted the veil from the hidden structure of the macroscopic universe, his public artworks were known for their monumental scale. The most appropriate linchpin between Kepes’ private and public art was the energizing quality of light—an indispensable ingredient of all his experiments. He regarded light as an absolute and symbolically charged kinetic form representing an infinite spatiality and the most potent tool for artistic communication (e.g. Programed light mural for the KLM ticket office, New York, 1959; Light Tower, Baltimore, 1964; The Nightscape of the City, Milan Triennial, 1968; Photoelastic Walk, MIT/Explorations, 1970; Blue Sky on the Red Line at Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass., 1985). The luminous signals also gained importance as a historic phenomenon, manifested in the exhibition Light as a Creative Medium featured in 1965 in the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard. Knowledge, vision, and light were corresponding categories in his philosophy. Having this in regard we shouldn’t wonder why the most evident sinew of Kepes’ pan-artistic enterprise termed “interthinking” and “interseeing” were the 6+1 volumes of the Vision + Value series he edited between 1965 and 1972. These books outlined the integrity of some disparate fields in the natural and social sciences as well as in architecture and design with the intention to intensify our “creative awareness” and to enrich the potentials of the maimed and dwindling world that we live in.
György Kepes is the namesake of the International Kepes Society, founded in 1996 by Attila Csáji.
In line with the spirit and activities of György Kepese, the members of the Society aim to present and utilize research results, and support artistic creative programs. It consists of artists, scientists, and research engineers. The group seeks to facilitate the establishment or deepening of human connections among representatives from diverse fields and nations, which can be mutually enriching, with their common interest being contemporary life and openness to new scientific and technical developments. Their activities extend beyond just technical arts, with the core being the society of light artists who have engaged in fruitful dialogues at light symposiums regularly held over the past decades since 1993.
WHO WAS GYÖRGY KEPES, WHY SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT HIM, AND WHY IS HIS WORK SO OVERDUE NOW?
György Kepes was a trailblazer in blending art, science, and technology, establishing himself as a precursor to new media art and what we now identify in academic circles as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). He was instrumental in establishing "light art" as a standalone artistic medium. Additionally, Kepes coined the term "civic art," emphasizing the integration of visual arts with urban development in the revitalization of public spaces. As a prominent artist represented by the Saidenberg Gallery on Madison Avenue, he carved out a distinct path within the New York School’s abstract expressionism, offering a fresh and innovative perspective through his paintings. His educational work at the New Bauhaus/School of Design in Chicago also revolutionized cameraless abstract photography by reviving techniques like "cliché verre." Kepes was the first visual artist invited to teach at MIT in Cambridge, where he remains the only person to have received the prestigious title of Institute Professor within the School of Architecture and Planning. His exhibitions were groundbreaking, showcasing scientific photographs alongside artworks through the "new landscape" concept he introduced in 1951, which aimed to expand visual culture by creating new iconography to represent what is beyond human sight.
In 1967, Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT, where he brought together artists, scientists, and engineers. This Center quickly emerged as a global hub for new media art, fostering groundbreaking experiments in lasers, holography, video, digital imaging, and even Sky Art. Many of the Center’s projects, driven by ecological awareness and early anthropocene thinking, established it as one of the first research laboratories of its kind in an academic setting. Kepes’ exhibitions, curatorial work and educational concepts delved into the expansion and interaction of human senses, advocating for a new form of synergistic thinking. Although his vision of fusing technology with art was often perceived as overly utopian, several of his Cold War-era projects—such as his proposed commission for the US Pavilion at the 1969 São Paulo Biennale—were discontinued due to contemporary beliefs about the incompatibility of the “two culture.”
Kepes’ publications, including Language of Vision (1944), The New Landscape in Art and Science (1956), The Visual Arts Today (1960), and the Vision + Value series (1965–1971), remain foundational texts in design and art curricula worldwide. His theoretical work has shaped educational programs, influencing institutions in countries like Colombia, Japan, Iran, Singapore and Hungary.
WHAT IS THIS FILM ABOUT?
Márton Orosz's new feature-length documentary (Hungary/Canada), the result of nearly 15 years of work, delves into the extraordinary life and artistic evolution of György Kepes, charting his journey from Europe to the United States. The film not only tells Kepes’ captivating story but also provides a vivid account of the rise of new media art, offering an exciting window into the creativity and innovation that defined the Mid-Century era.
“The film convincingly introduces Kepes
as a forgotten precursor of media art.”
― Steven Heller, New York Times columnist
“Orosz's film is a walk down a memory lane of work on the cutting edge, a chronicle of the formation of an interdisciplinary Center through the eyes of its visionary leadership; it is an extraordinary moment in art history in the last quarter of the 20th century as technology was about to change the world.”
― Jon Goldman, media artist/filmmaker
“Knowing what I know now after watching this documentary on György Kepes, it’s surprising that I haven’t heard about him before.”
― Maheilia Thomas, political science major, UCSB
director and photographer: Márton Orosz
editor: Márton Orosz
music: Péter Nánási
producer: László Zsolt Bordos
voiceover: Timothy Nugent-Head
type design: Béla Frank
main title animation: László Bordos Zsolt
post-production supervisor: Boróka Prokob
sound editor: Alex Hunyadi
steadicam actors: József Varga, Csongor Zeitler
Spanish dialogue translator: Adriána Lantos
Your support will help us fund upcoming projects, such as the International Kepes Society, and bring to completion the first comprehensive biography
of György Kepes, a work that has been in progress for 15 years.