In the past years, Haibo Illés and Richárd Melykó have become defining figures of the Hungarian experimental performance scene with their poetic, quirky and slightly eccentric works, which fuse humor with a strongly conceptual and critical approach.
"Beeps and alphanumeric reports. Table-turning séance on a geophilosophical plane. Point by point... Meanwhile, a projection appears. Like an occult photo album that would like to accompany the onlooker through the faultlines of the spectacle. An interrupted catastrophe, phone displays of image-breakers, Namazu's back, unacceptable portraits, receding capital. Etc. As far as the eye can see.
In the 50-minute performance-installation, a dispositif 'shining with absence and negativity' is brought to life by an unattainable scenography, emerging from a composition of various fractured, cracked signs, which constantly trigger growing speculation in the viewer." (Haibo Illés, Richárd Melykó)
RAW Spell was created from the performances of the duo's internationally funded research-based art project (RAW Quakes; RAW) in 2024.
Haibo Illés (1998) is a puppet and set designer, and Richárd Melykó (1994) is an intermedia artist. They are a Budapest-based interdisciplinary artist duo experimenting with the temporal extension of performance, while responding to the exhaustion of imagination with scenic poeticism. Since 2020, they have been exploring the weak points of the spectacle with their performative tools, experimenting with artistic trends such as relational aesthetics, choreopolitics, or anthropocene critical hydrofeminism. Currently, their art-based research is detecting the melancholic intersection of realist magic and agrarian magic. Their practice is characterised by a fusion of performance-installation and performatively 'receding' physical and digital materials, which they embrace as an ongoing test of courage in the 'failure of presence'.
Haibo Illés and Richárd Melykó are active internationally and have presented their work at A4 - Association for Contemporary Culture in Bratislava, CO.LABS in Brno, HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste in Dresden, Alfred ve dvoře and Palác Akropolis in Prague, and participated at the 3rd International Forum of Performance Art in Drama, among many other art venues in Budapest.
A4 - Associations for Contemporary Culture, HELLERAU - European Centre for the Arts, Goethe-Institut Budapest, Visegrad Fund, Workshop Foundation
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Goethe Intézet |
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Műhely Alapítvány |
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Visegrad Fund |
