LIGHT SYMPOSIUM 2026. 30 Years of the International Kepes Society.
1996-2026 | Celebrating Three Decades of Art, Science and Technology.

In 2026, the INTERNATIONAL KEPES SOCIETY (IKS) marks the thirtieth anniversary of its founding. Established in 1996 at the initiative of Attila Csaji, the Society emerged from the intellectual and artistic legacy of the Light Symposia inaugurated in Eger, Hungary, in 1993. The year also marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Gyorgy Kepes (1906-2001), whose visionary work continues to inspire new ways of thinking across art, science, and technology.

Launched in 1993, the Light Symposium is the world's longest-running international forum dedicated to the art of light. Over more than three decades, it has fostered a distinctive space for interdisciplinary exchange, bringing together artists, curators, scholars, scientists, and engineers. At its core is an understanding of light not merely as a condition of vision or a vehicle for artistic expression, but as a medium in its own right - one whose aesthetic, technological, scientific, social, and cultural dimensions continually invite new forms of inquiry.

Since the symposium's inception, a contemporary art exhibition has been an integral part of the program, offering each edition a distinct perspective on the diverse possibilities of light as an artistic medium. More than an extension or illustration of the symposium's intellectual discourse, these exhibitions provide an independent platform for artistic experimentation and critical reflection, bringing emerging trends in light-based art into dialogue with innovative practices and evolving technological possibilities.

The 2026 anniversary celebrates not only a remarkable legacy spanning more than three decades, but also its continuing capacity to generate new ideas, practices, and encounters. It reaffirms a living tradition of inquiry in which light serves simultaneously as an artistic medium, a field of technological exploration, and a catalyst for collaboration across disciplines. At the heart of this enduring endeavor is the conviction that the intersections of art, science, and technology can open up new ways of seeing, thinking, and engaging with the world.

4 NOVEMBER
VASARELY MUSEUM
1033 Budapest, Szentlelek ter 6.

18.00 Konstantin Akinsha (independent curator, Budapest/Kyiv, Ukraine)
F Is for "Fake": The International Dissemination of "Russian Avant-Garde"
Forgeries and How It Can Be Prevented

5 NOVEMBER
MOHOLY-NAGY UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN (MOME)
1121 Budapest, Zugligeti ut 9-25.

9.30 Registration

10.00 Laszlo Zsolt Bordos (independent artist, co-President, International Kepes Society)
Welcome Address

10.10 Marton Orosz (art historian, curator, co-President, International Kepes Society)
Luminomania: The Promises and Failures of Light-Based Media

10.30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Tamiko Thiel (independent artist, Munich, Germany / recipient of SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art)
Thinking with Machines: Exploring the Challenges of Design Aesthetics in Science

- coffee break -

GENERATIVE HISTORIES

11.50 Daria Mille (curator, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany)
The Politics of Synthetic Images. Art in the Age of AI

12.10 Livia Nolasco-Rozsas (University College London, UK)
Matter, Non-Matter, Anti-Matter: Exhibitions as Digital Experiences

12.30 Francesca Franco (independent curator, Venice, Italy)
From Vera Molnar to the Venice Biennale. Women Pioneers of Generative Art and the Rewriting of Media Art History

- lunch -

THE DARK SIDE OF PERCEPTION

14.00 Eszter Polonyi & Saso Grozdanov (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia / Kunstuniversitat Linz, Austria)
Black Holes, Black Boxes, and the Situated Observer

14.20 Daniel A. Freedman (Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine)
The Unheard Half of Light

ARTIST TALKS

14.50 Vinzenz Aubry (independent artist, Berlin, Germany - Copenhagen, Denmark)
Embodied Cinema: The Audience as Camera and Screen at Once

15.10 Pascal Dombis (independent artist, Paris, France)
Multiplying Points of View: Experiments with Lenticular-Based Media

- coffee break -

15.45 Eva B. Csonka (Berlin, Germany, IRCAM "Orchestra of the Future" research group)
Temporary Utopias

16.05 Graham Smith (independent artist, Toronto, Canada / founder of Virtual Reality Artist Access Program)
Human Perception of Panoramic Space

16.25 Shawn Brixey (School of the Arts, College of Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia, USA)
The Second Aether

- coffee break -

17.00 Lora Likova (Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, USA)
Harnessing the Power of Art for Brain Plasticity & Neurorehabilitation

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

17.20 GYORGY KEPES' CAVS + FRANK MALINA'S LEONARDO - THEN AND NOW
"The Pleasure of Light" revisited

Nina Czegledy (independent curator, Toronto, Canada, Leonardo/ISAST board member; co curator of Pleasure of Light), Raphael Arar (independent artist, Portland, USA, Leonardo/ISAST board member), Roger Malina (Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology, University of Texas, Dallas, USA and former chief editor of Leonardo), Ryszard W. Kluszczynski (Director of the Transdisciplinary Centre for Arts and Science Research, University of Lodz, Poland), Rona Kopeczky (art historian and curator, acb Gallery, Budapest; co-curator of Pleasure of Light)

EVENING
KAHAN ART SPACE BUDA
1116 Budapest, Gyapot utca 4.

19.00 EXHIBITION OPENING: AFTERGLOW
Curated by Nina Czegledy, Joel Ong, Marton Orosz
Opening speech: Oliver A. I. Botar (Professor of Art History and Associate Director, School of Art, University of Manitoba, Canada)

The Afterglow exhibition draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Exhibiting artists:
Raphael ARAR / Vinzenz AUBRY / Laszlo-Albert BARABASI / Gaspar BATTHA / Balint BOLYGO / Laszlo Zsolt BORDOS / Andras BOROCZ / Shawn BRIXEY / Aron DOHNAL / Attila CSAJI / Eva B. CSONKA / Pascal DOMBIS / FLUXLIAN (Martin FLUGELMAN OLMEDA, Axel ROTHBART, Lisandro GALVAN) / Jan Daniel FRITZ / Alexander GYENES / Zsolt GYENES / Erzsebet HORVATH / Mihaly G. HORVATH / Dieter JUNG / Antal KELLE Artformer / Klara KUCHTA / Flora B. LABORCZ / Willie LA METRA / Joanie LEMERCIER / Renata LISZI / Adrien LUCCA / Hrysovalanti MAHERAS / Erik MATRAI / Andras MENGYAN / Antoni MUNTADAS / Andras NAGY / NAGYMOLNAR (Csaba MOLNAR, Krisztian NAGY) / Akos NEMCSICS / Joel ONG & MSI Lab / Pietro PIRELLI / Ferenc POCSY / David ROKEBY / Bettina SCHUELKE / Robert SEIDEL / Robert SOCHACKI / Gabor Csongor SZIGETI / Tamiko THIEL / Gabey TJON A THAM / London TSAI / Elaine WHITTAKER

6 NOVEMBER
MOHOLY-NAGY UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN (MOME)
1121 Budapest, Zugligeti ut 9-25.

9.30 Registration

FROM THE EYE TO THE MIND

10.00 Flora Zsofia Fedor (neuroscientist, research project manager at BrainVisionCenter, Budapest, Hungary)
Learning to See the Brain. From Gyorgy Kepes's Language of Vision to Innovations in Neuroscience

10.20 Hrysovalanti Maheras (media artist and researcher, Toronto, York University, Canada)
Corpus Horme: Affect Between Body, Environment, and Machine

10.40 Renata Cserjesi (neuropsychologist, Associate Professor, Head of the EMIND Neuropsychology Research Group, Budapest), Viola Lukacs (curator, writer, Director of Curatorial
Affairs at 0xCollection, Basel, Switzerland), Andrea Sztojanovits (artist, media arts researcher, Budapest)
12 Hertz: Experimental Art & Science Research Network

11.00 Marta Novak (somnologist, University of Toronto, Canada)
Here Comes the Sun: Light, Darkness, and the Biology of Being Human

- coffee break -

ARTIST TALKS

11.40 Robert Seidel (independent artist, Berlin, Germany)
Between Spectral Abstraction and Latent Space

12.00 Joel Ong (University of Victoria, Research Chair of Emergent Digital Art Practices, Victoria, Canada)
Frozen Sound: Revealing the Relations Between People, Objects and Spaces

12.20 Adrien Lucca (Studio Adrien Lucca, Brussels, Belgium)
Ecological Colour: A Journey Through the Spectrum of Light

12.40 Pietro Pirelli (independent artist and inventor, co-founder of AGON, Milan, Italy)
When Technology Disappears

- lunch -

LIGHT ART COLLECTIVES AND ART x SCIENCE LABS

14.15 iii - instrument inventors initiative / Gabey Tjon a Tham (The Hague, Netherlands)
Light as a Living System: Nature, Technology and Emergent Patterns

14.35 FLUXLIAN (Martin Flugelman Olmeda, Axel Rothbart, Lisandro Galvan) (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Bodies, Prostheses and Collective Choreographies of Light

14.55 NOKS Collective (Robert Sochacki, Wera Morawiec) (Wroclaw, Poland)
From Waking the System to Worlding. Light as a Creative Tool

15.15 Ryszard W. Kluszczynski (Director of the Transdisciplinary Centre for Arts and Science Research, University of Lodz) (Lodz, Poland)
Art and Science Meeting: Towards Transdisciplinarity

15.35 Ming-Yi Gyorgy Tsai (Wen-Ying Tsai Foundation, New York, Conservation Director) (Basel, Switzerland)
Transgenerational Cybernetic Art

- coffee break -

IMMERSION UNBOUND

16.20 David Rokeby (Toronto, Canada / multiple award winner at Ars Electronica in the field of Interactive Art)
Latent Spaces of Possibility: from Interactive Art to AI

16.40 Tibor Balogh (researcher and inventor, CEO, Holografika, Budapest)
From Holography to HoloVizio, the Holographic Universe

17.00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Oliver A. I. Botar (Professor of Art History and Associate Director, School of Art, University of Manitoba, Canada / recipient of the Moholy-Nagy Award, MOME)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's Projection Spaces

18.15 Closing Remarks

EVENING

BUDAPEST ARTFACTORY
1146 Budapest, Epitesz utca 20.

19.00 EXHIBITION OPENING: PASCAL DOMBIS - AFTERDOOM
(on view until January 6, 2027)

KAHAN ART SPACE BUDA
1116 Budapest, Gyapot utca 4.

19.00 EXHIBITION FINISSAGE: AFTERGLOW

7 NOVEMBER
HILD VILLA
Research Institute of Art and Art Theory, Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA-MMKI), Budapest, in collaboration with the Hungarian Science Festival / Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA)
1121 Budapest, Budakeszi ut 38.

15.00 Presentation of the 2023 International Kepes Society Light Symposium Proceedings and the Luminotheque (2023, Vasarely Muzeum) exhibition catalogue

Discussion participants:
Eszter Bohus (founder of the Bohus-Lugossy Foundation), Dr. Norbert Kroo (physicist, former Secretary General and Vice-President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Andras Szollosi-Nagy (UNESCO Chairholder in Water Conflict Management), Marton Orosz (art historian, co President of the International Kepes Society, curator and editor of Luminotheque), Ferenc Pocsy (independent artist), Richard Robinson (co-editor of the 2023 International Kepes Society Light Symposium Proceedings)

HEGYVIDEK GALERIA
1126 Budapest, Kiralyhago ter 10.

17.00 FILM SCREENING
Gyorgy Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science (feature-length documentary film, Hungary-Canada, directed by Marton Orosz)

Participants of the post-screening discussion:
Tunde Topor (editor-in-chief of Artmagazin, moderator), Laszlo Lengyel (art historian and Kepes scholar, former head of the Art Appraisal Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), Andras Mengyan (kinetic artist and designer, former professor at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway), Marton Orosz (art historian, director of the documentary film), Andrea Sztojanovits (independent artist, co-founder of mius X Attaray Visual)