Attila Kondor: The Paths of Attention

The painting is a result, an ending point and a new point of departureat the same time. The different layers of paint on the canvas conserve the consecutive moments of focusing. The result of the creative work’s process – being the sum of phases of the temporal succession – virtually stops time; the resulting „atemporal” object focuses the viewer’s time or attention unconsciously, inviting him to learn its particularly „dense” mode of existence. But where does the painting invite or guide the viewer? How can this particular phenomenon materialize? One of the most important questions for me is how the viewer’s internal journey – the viewer’s response to the invitation of the painting – coincides with the painter’s external (or rather expressing) one – of which the painting is the visible print. How much can identical – or at least common – experience be concerned? Is there a metaphysical point, where the viewer’s and the creator’s contemplation coincide?
Both cases concern a kind of internal motion, the movements of pictorial thinking and understanding: imagination, concentration, or „wondering” (in the sense of being beyond voluntary focusing). Being interested in all this I had to „make the painting move”. Hence I started to employ and – as far as I could – extend the achievements of contemporary animation filmmaking in order to reveal the different depths and layers of attention and seeing. Animation helps reconstruct these phases of creative work process, resulting in a new work of art, which may make the flow of thought – aimed at a better understanding of our existence – more transparent in case the goal of the investigation is achieved successfully.