Peter Horvath: The Presence of Absence
September 2003
Peter Horvath: The Presence of Absence
The Presence of Absence by Peter Horvath is an interactive visual narrative that unfolds through pop-up windows. An abstracted human face, etched with indecipherable information, acts as a main interface for users to navigate the work. Moving the cursor over the face, users can uncover three different narratives that unfold as nonlinear trails of associations, revealing layers of communication that are open to interpretation and create presences in their own right. Interaction with the work resembles the process of reading the faces of other people for signs of recognition. Intended as a film for the web, The Presence of Absence challenges the difference between conscious and subconscious identity and drives.
This project originally relied on QuickTime plugins that are no longer supported by modern browsers. Those files have been updated to modern equivalents, but browser autoplay restrictions may impact the experience.
Peter Horvath (b. 1961; Toronto, Canada) embraced digital technologies at the birth of the web, creating audio/video narratives through selective editing of film footage and the use of his early collages. His more recent work focuses on deconstructing and recontextualizing imagery through assemblage, drawing from personal and found materials. Horvath’s work is included in private and museum collections, including the McEvoy Family Collection and the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada. He is the recipient of commissions from Rhizome at the New Museum, New York in 2005, and Turbulence.org (1996–2016) in 2004. Horvath exhibits in museums and galleries around the world, including Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal and Toronto; and Clarendon Fine Art, London and Westport, Connecticut; the Rise Art Prize Exhibition, London (2018); and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Canada; and FILE Electronic Language International Festival, Brazil.
Gate Pages
Every month from March 2001 to February 2006, the Whitney invited an artist or collective to present their work in the form of a “Gate Page” on artport. Each page was meant to function as a portal to the artist’s own sites and projects. The Gate Pages comprise a range of artistic approaches to the format—while some of them are designed as entry points to the respective artist’s website or promote a recently launched work, others take the form of a more complex stand-alone project.
Wherever necessary and possible, these works are made functional through emulation and reconstructions from the Internet Archive. Not all of them have been restored to their original state and their conservation is ongoing. You can also view the original Gate Pages archive to see how they were presented at the time of their creation.
artport
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