Game of LAIR: Veronika Molnár and Tamás Páll in dialogue

Tuesday May 16, 2023 | 6:30-8:00pm

Location: Residency Unlimited
360 Court Street (main green church doors), Brooklyn NY 11231 (map)

On May 16, the headquarters of Residency Unlimited will be transformed into a cross-reality dwelling space, where RU curator in residence Veronika Molnár and artist Tamás Páll will perform a game-based discussion. They will play the Game of LAIR, a speculative research game that utilizes storytelling and gameplay to explore the entanglements of Eastern European politics, technology, science and world building.

LAIR is a long-term new media artistic research project of Páll that has appeared in various forms and different locations since 2021. The project revolves around a fictional community squatting in a Hungarian biodome, which is partially based on a recent development project in Budapest that has attracted widespread controversy.

During this casual game night event, video materials from LAIR will be screened, and visitors are invited to participate.

Click below to see images from the program

About

Tamás Páll is an interdisciplinary artist from Budapest, working with digital media, videogames, installation and performance. His praxis blends experimental game design, film, installation and performance. Páll’s works are assemblages of associations and embodied experience that weave together the politics of technology and Eastern Europe, online subcultures, scientific world-views, nonhuman storytelling and synthetic mythologies.

He is a co-founder of the Budapest-based artist group Hollow, with whom they create immersive performances. His projects have been showcased in numerous venues, including The Victoria & Albert Museum in London; ISCP in New York; Art Cologne in Cologne; Panke Gallery and radial.systems in Berlin; MeetFactory and Karpuchina Gallery in Prague; Ludwig Museum and Trafó House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest among others.

Veronika Molnár is a curator and writer currently based in Budapest. She has been the Artistic Director of Liget Gallery, one of Budapest’s longest-standing nonprofit galleries, since November 2022. Molnar received her MA in Art History from Hunter College, the City University of New York, in 2021 with the support of the Fulbright grant. Her research interests lie at the intersection of artistic activism and environmental justice; her curatorial and writing practice currently focuses on artists and collectives who have been engaging with the topic of the planetary climate crisis through the lens of intersectionality, feminism, capitalist extractivism, or anti-Black racism.

Molnar completed a yearlong curatorial internship at The Museum of Modern Art in 2021 and has held various curatorial positions at carriage trade gallery, Edward Ressle Gallery, Faur Zsofi Gallery, FERi Gallery, and the Budapest Photo Festival. Her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, and MoMA Magazine.

This program benefits from the support of The Trust for Mutual Understanding and BuBu Residency. 

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.