Bestiarium (2024-25)

Deep beauty , Mudec, Milano,

curated by: Denis Curti

I use artificial intelligence software to merge human and animal elements, creating creatures that have never existed—yet feel undeniably mesmerizing. My ethereal, surreal subjects seem to emerge from another realm, interacting with glacial figures dressed in vintage clothing.

These female characters, often inspired by 1920s calendar girls, embody a striking contrast between nostalgic charm and the unsettling presence of hybrid beings. By blending historical references with contemporary technology, I construct a fantastical universe that challenges perception—where the past and present weave together into something magical, disquieting, and strangely familiar.

Caught in a continuous state of fluid metamorphosis, my works invite viewers to step into a timeless dimension. An AI-generated soundtrack, composed by me, deepens the experience—amplifying the sense of metaphysical tension and evoking an almost psychedelic sense of estrangement.

Folkloric Robots is a celebration of the delicate balance between tradition and modernity. It transforms the cold, mechanical nature of robots into warm, emotionally resonant beings, adorned with the rich cultural motif. This project invites viewers into a surreal, yet familiar world where the past and future coexist in harmony, encouraging a deeper appreciation for the cultural narratives that shape our present and future.

The folkloric robot series can be ordered in the Lumas gallery: here

As a digital artist, I’ve always been fascinated by the hidden aspects of the human body. These designs stem from my desire to explore the parts of us that remain unseen, even when affected by illness, and to bring them into the open.

I created these anatomical sweaters to bridge the gap between visibility and invisibility, making the internal workings of our bodies something we can relate to and appreciate. By wearing these designs, you’re not just adding something unique to your wardrobe—you’re embracing a deeper connection with the beauty and complexity of the human body.

Thanks to AI, I now have a level of creative freedom that wasn’t possible before. The final images are no longer pixelated, and I can refine the renderings until they fully meet my vision.

For me, AI feels like an evolution of the digital collage technique I’ve used in the past, but with far fewer technical limitations. This allows me to shift my focus from solving technical issues to concentrating more on the creative and conceptual aspects of design, which has been a transformative experience.

Tango in Wonderland - 3D

This dance involves artificial intelligence to create a dynamic, ever-changing environment within a closed space, generating unexpected social situations, pushing individuals out of their comfort zones and potentially challenging their preconceptions and biases.

Photo: Philipp Greindl

From the collaboration between the interior design studio Freeform and the artist Dávid Szauder, an exclusive series of wallpaper graphics is born that transcend the boundaries of creativity to dive into the depths of the Earth’s spheres from an extraordinarily different point of view.

Hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, which is also joined here by the thermosphere, are the five dimensions explored by the visionary collection of Freeform & Szauder. These creations were not designed to be just elements with a strong decorative impact; rather, they are real journeys into the beating heart of new ecosystems. While on the one hand they visually recall the different corners of our Earth, on the other they are full of unexpected details far from the horizons known to us.

Through the conscious and pioneering use of artificial intelligence, the well-known artist Dávid Szauder has in fact created surreal and visionary landscapes, where the most innovative art merges with science to create a unique sensorial experience. These graphics represent the perfect harmony between nature and technology, offering a new perspective on what surrounds each individual, extending from land and water towards the infinity of space.

With this collection, the Hungarian authors trace a common thread between imaginary dimensions: each stage, each sphere, is an intricate territory to discover and, all together, they create a new, complex, living world. In each graphic, the careful study of perspective creates a strong sense of depth which, applied to wallpapers, transforms into an increased perception of space. Whether it is commercial environments, hotels, restaurants or any public place, the coverings designed by Freeform & Szauder are literally capable of opening up interior design. Towards discovery, towards the unknown, towards other dimensions. Towards other Spheres.

Tecnografica is thrilled to add Freeform & Szauder among the artists of its Art Collections. Human creativity, artificial intelligence and professional skills thus come together in a series of graphic subjects dedicated to those who want to move away from the ordinary to design memorable and unconventional spaces.

As dusk falls, the building’s inside comes alive with light and motion, AI reinterprets famed European paintings, highlighting their timeless appeal in a new, dynamic format. This fusion of art and technology offers a profound and engaging experience, inviting viewers to explore Europe’s heritage as it is carried forward by the possibilities of AI.

This exhibition is a tribute to the enduring legacy of European art, showcasing how its preservation can be harmoniously linked with modern techniques, ensuring its relevance for future generations. „Illuminated canvases” is both a visual delight and a reflective journey, emphasizing the role of innovation in the stewardship of cultural treasures.

because the question is always what makes this whole ai art unique. And then I thought how nice it would be to stick a special character on my pictures, which would make them all original, only mine. My AI. A couple of pieces from the series can be seen at the Deep art fair. here.

This dance involves artificial intelligence to create a dynamic, ever-changing environment within a closed space, generating unexpected social situations, pushing individuals out of their comfort zones and potentially challenging their preconceptions and biases.

In Tango in Wonderland I am looking for the connection between technology, in this case artificial intelligence, and socially sensitive topics, social sensitivity. Artificial Intelligence as an imaging approach is slowly becoming accessible to everyone; indeed, we could say that this slice of technology is present in our everyday lives. The key question is whether we can structure this technology in such a way that it conceptually serves certain sensitive topics.

Cooperation with freeform.ourcollective

Reflecting on recent technological trends, we used artificial intelligence for our interior, delivered at design fair S/ALON. The end result was the custom wallpaper. We aimed to experiment how this new advancement fits in a timeless environment and what it means for tomorrow’s interiors.

AI-Generated Animation with Sándor Petőfi’s Poetry at Berlin’s Festival of Lights

photos by: Hajnal Szolga

The Berlin Hungarian Cultural Institute (Collegium Hungaricum Berlin – CHB) is participating in one of Berlin’s largest autumn events, the Festival of Lights, with a video animation based on the most popular poems of Sándor Petőfi and artificial intelligence.

CHB has been using the facade of its neo-Bauhaus-style building in Berlin’s historic city centre for years as a platform for showcasing and promoting Hungarian culture, and this time, passers-by in the area can view Dávid Ariel Szauder’s latest creation.

ART of HIDING | Those who hide and those who don't...

Surely everyone has experienced the feeling of wanting to disappear in a crowd, on a bus, at a soccer match, in a problematic situation, in the midst of a conflict. Not to become invisible, but to put on a secure-protective layer that perfectly hides what's inside, yet allows for easy visibility. This way, the possibility of observation and presence remains, but we can be sure that no atrocity can reach us inside, in a relatively soft and protective shell. I have created such disguises, garments, armors, and shells by exploring the 'fashion' of other ominous eras. All of this combined with current patterns, and created the end result through an infinitely intelligent neuron simulation.

An exhibition of new prints by Dávid Szauder produced using Ai, is on view at Gallery East of Eden, 67. Paulay Ede utca, H-1067 Budapest. This is the artist's first exhibition with the gallery.

I already made earlier few surreal portraits of Mr T. but this time i was asked by The Washington Post (wow).

I made a cover and two illustrations accompanying the fantastic articles of Margaret Sullivan and David Montgomery.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/10/country-after-second-trump-term/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/12/margaret-sullivan-how-media-should-cover-trump-next-campaign/

Parallel Realities, 2022

with Anna-Réka Baktay

Ludwig Museum Hungary

Dávid Szauder’s peep box hides eerie, atmospheric animated worlds, reminiscent of our modern perception

filtered through online imagery. Szauder works with AI generated images and animations, exploring the boundaries of

reality, creativity and artistic ownership.

catalogue is here:

https://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/system/files/publication/attachments/2023-01/230123_kisebbvilagok_online.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2zuIeF_lpdYzwwwwrT5Yq9dJQvbLhCOTkhYSG2A9dr3ObBvX0JwU8mxew

I appeared in the most fashionable department store in Paris.

My first joint presentation with Art point. More than 15 of my works will be presented at the end of September. Details coming soon.

The “Vision of Leonardo” project invites visitors to explore a virtual exhibition located around Milan in spaces connected to the city and to the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci, such as the Castello Sforzesco and the Navigli. The exhibition includes eight Augmented Reality installations, of which one is placed within the Museum walls, resonating with the themes and contents of the Leonardo Galleries.

All installations will be accessible through the ImaginAR app, downloadable for free from Google Play store and Apple Store.

The visit to the installation at the Museum is included in the general admission ticket.

The eight emerging contemporary artists involved in the Project were selected through a public call.

The Project is led by Bepart and curated by the Museum. Sound design by eArs. Image scans by AerariumChain.

https://viaggi.corriere.it/eventi/cards/la-visione-di-leonardo-laffascinante-mostra-in-realta-aumentata-in-otto-luoghi-di-milano/?img=7

Light always has been one of my favorite medium. These minimalist spaces are always important for me. Here is a selection from the last 15 years of meditative spaces.

It slowly sounds commonplace that our lives have been radically transformed by the COVID pandemic for a year now. We all experience its impact in different ways. The prospect that it will last for an unpredictable time can be quite depressing. For me, it appears as a kind of endless loop that returns again and again and wraps around our days. Never before has there been an epidemic about which the amount of news has been as vast and rapid as it is today, and all of this could only have a more depressing effect. The growing mass of daily information is drawn in curves on a piece of paper by a small drawing robot. Each time the word pandemic occurs in the news, the small robot gets the information to draw the next curve. The position of the curves is determined by the time and GPS coordinates of where the news is coming from, following the virus’s current status. Operating this way, an abstract image of the pandemic, an infinite abstract loop is formed during the two weeks the exhibition is on.

04.03. - 17.03. 2021

Diskurs Berlin

Novalisstraße 7, 10115 Berlin

https://www.discursus.info/

It is a realtime system. The algorithm is reading different books realtime and every time finds a word describes an emotion creates a new particle in the quantum system. Here is a few photos of the working prototype.

My project and theory became part of the book: Themes of Contemporary Art

more details are here

Taking as his inspiration the eponymous sculpture by one of the founding fathers of the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy, David Szauder has re-created his own large-scale 3.5m rendition of this iconic work as a kinetic light and sound sculpture for public space. First premiered in Korea, MOMENTUM brought Szauder’s Light Space Modulator to Berlin for the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus in 2019. Initially installed at the historic Villa Erxleben, Light Space Modulator now moves to the MOMENTUM gallery.

Over the course of four months, David Szauder continues to develop his translation of Moholy-Nagy’s seminal ideas into a multi-mediated interactive installation; creating videos and a soundscape algorithmically derived from the motion and sound of the sculpture, and adding a virtual component to launch his Moholy Cloud. This work-in-progress is punctuated with performances, artist talks, and guided tours throughout the course of the exhibition.

I decided to open my ‘digital retails store’ on the platform called ‘rarible’

If it would be an advertisement, i would write CLICK HERE to buy. (but it is of course not).

Let me explain the situation:

Remember back in the day when you had to convince your parents that online banking was safe? Remember when you thought TikTok was only about dancing teenagers? Remember when you thought that Bitcoin was only some kind of joke for computer nerds?

Well, the blockchain is now mainstream and has already shaken the art world to its very foundations.

Resistance is futile.

Digitalisation has dismantled and reconstructed robust models, like retail and the music industry... art is next.

This is the first VR project i developed for the show ‘wiedersehen” which will take place in the DISKURS BERLIN.

This project incorporates four scenes and three additional figures.

The four scenes are:

1. Personal Rain Snow

2. Idyllic moment

3 – The Philosopher Garden

4 The admire

The figures at the bottom: Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Inflexible)

(the three woman of fate- in my recognition they are ageless, without mythological attributes. Just floating as a sign of the non decided present )

and here is about the concept:

Last June, after almost four months of lockdown, I began to work with animated compositions that depicted imaginary figures in a timeless space, with no other human being in sight. The figures themselves are motionless, while the space they peacefully inhabit shows some kind of cosmic motion. The objects of this environment, as well as the space itself are animated by a mysterious force. The ensuing rhythmic movement renders their experience eternal. The figures are peaceful, pensive, and subdued, yet isolated and perhaps even lonely. They appear as though they were all ‘sitting on the edge of the void…’ – But perhaps, it’s not about the void, and one day, they might swing into action. We’ll see. Will we?

the interactive version with a few limitations is here.

Parallel Universes (2021), 4 Digital Animation Loops, with Original Sound

I. The Dream of the Statue (Budapest) 1971-2021, 1’20”

II. Changing of the Guard (Berlin, DDR) 1972-2021, 1’14”

III. Busó (Mohács, Hungary) 1967-2021, 1’09”

IV. Parallel Dimension (Budapest, Prague, Balaton) 1967-2021, 1’10”

I created these new video works, for this show, takes place in MOMENTUM WORLDWIDE.

here is a general description of the show:

Birds & Bicycles is conceived as a ‘factory of metaphors’, taking as its premise the ideas of freedom and the notion of borders, forever shifting and perpetually being crossed, where bicycles symbolise physical freedom, and birds metaphysical freedom; birds become the philosophy of freedom, and bicycles the technology of freedom. The overall manifestation of Birds & Bicycles is an international cooperation between 9 partners in Russia, Poland, and Germany, each hosting their own exhibitions and discussions focused around common values symbolized by the topics of freedom and crossing of borders. Based on social activism, historical reflections, and contemporary art, the project develops an expanding framework of participatory culture, with the contributions of each international partner brought together in a single online platform sharing the social, educational, and communicative results of the Birds & Bicycles initiative.

And about my works:

In this series of work, Hungarian media artist David Szauder re-animates original Super 8 footage shot by his grandfather in the 1960-80’s. Superimposing his own somewhat surrealistic universe onto the historic footage, Szauder conveys the sense of a world perpetually going slightly mad. And perhaps it is. In the state of our world today, where nationalism, political tensions, and the closing of borders are on the rise, it would indeed be mad not to look back upon the lessons of history. The artist’s grandfather developed his passion as an amateur filmmaker with the purchase of his first 8mm camera in the 1960s. Through its lens, he recorded glimpses of the world he was allowed to see, travelling as much as he was permitted within the political constraints and physical borders of the Eastern Bloc. Upon his grandfather’s death, David Szauder inherited a time-machine – a collection of over 1000 rolls of film archiving the world as his grandfather saw it. This footage forms the basis for much of Szauder’s recent work, exploring memory in the light of personal and collective history.

NFT

Crypto blamage or golden-mine for digital artists?

I still can’t decide, but the truth is, it would be a big luxury not to try this very trendy and decentralised possibility. I think i know what is trend and i have no idea what is decentralised, but i can live with it. I created these animation for my insta sketchbook, but in the meantime i am trying to mint some coins in a bit. These blocks are all chained here:

Glockenspiel (2021)

Creation machine (2021)

La Boum (2021)

What about an immersive rendezvous? (2021)

Foursome with a pigeon (2021)

similar identities are dropping out on a very mechanical way. (2021)

Long process of the infinity rotation (2021)

Last June, after almost four months of lockdown, I began to work with animated compositions that depicted imaginary figures in a timeless space, with no other human being in sight. The figures themselves are motionless, while the space they peacefully inhabit shows some kind of cosmic motion. The objects of this environment, as well as the space itself are animated by a mysterious force. The ensuing rhythmic movement renders their experience eternal. The figures are peaceful, pensive, and subdued, yet isolated and perhaps even lonely. They appear as though they were all ‘sitting on the edge of the void…’ – But perhaps, it’s not about the void, and one day, they might swing into action. We’ll see. Will we?

you can enjoy if you wish these animations on my instagram.

it is a huge honor for me to be featured as an artist on ikono.tv with my animations. Ikono Tv is the first media platform that streams nothing but art as a pure moving and digital Masterwork, interviews or documentaries.

https://www.ikonotv.art/

these animations i made during my residency in the Momentum, see the page here:

https://www.momentumworldwide.org/berlin-index/

some of them are inspired by Laszlo Nagy Moholy, Lajos Kassak and other construktivist pioneers.

"At the beginning of the five-minute video loop we enter the early 19th century study of Ferenc Kölcsey, the man who wrote the poem which two decades later became the lyrics of the Hungarian national anthem. In the initially empty room, Kölcsey’s figure gradually appears as a shadow: he is seen sitting at his desk writing the poem, then taking books off the shelves or standing up every once in a while to recite the parts he is ready with. Meanwhile, other shadows also take shape. At times the door opens and symbols show up behind it. The background of the projection displays the original manuscript as if read line by line. The room slowly gets darker, then filled with light again, and the poem is completed; it is at this point that we step out of the room."

(Special thanks to EvolveMediaInteract and Neil Max Emmanuel for their contribution of the picture series entitled ’going medieval’.)

I like stories, good stories, bad stories, all kind of stories.

When my Grandfather died years ago, I inherited an incredible amount of well-edited super 8 film material. Films from the 60s until the 80s. Experiments, film noirs, films about my childhood, documentaries, travel films, hidden-recordings. Since I started to watch them, I tried to put together a story out of them — The story.

However, after a struggle with the 4000 film reels during the last two years, I recognised that there is no story.

Instead, there are magnetic phenomena — emotions, impressions, memories, feelings, inspirations, and so forth.

How could I catch them, how could I reorganise the moments of these old recordings? Finally, I concluded to use tags. Hundreds of tags. Because by hundreds of tags, anything can be expressed, everything can be described.

So I decided to select from the films as many as I can and use tags to organise them. The duration of the samples is from 2 seconds to 1-minute loops. Attaching a label to someone or something is one of the most exciting steps of the procedure.

These loops are connected through tags. So the story can be generated by proceeding from one point to another.

I wondered how if I fed artificial intelligence with information that contained most of the possible elements of a given age and genre, how real the result would be. In this case, I uploaded the bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy, and kinetic structures. The result itself is spectacular, a non-existent archive. Which includes the two most important questions: if artificial intelligence can be manipulated so well, isn’t it exactly that artificial intelligence manipulates us? Or has deep fake already created a separate branch of art?

As an artist and designer in the recent years (between 2016 and 2019) i realised few light installations. Sometimes this installations are developed in the nature, in this case i was researching the relation between natural light and artificial light.

In other cases these installations are placed in to urban environments. In this case the aim is to make a temporary intervention, which is changing the outlook of a given space and transforming in to a piece of artwork.

Berlin 2016

Budapest 2017

Hungary 2018

Hungary 2019

These animations, from an ongoing series of video sketches, are hand drawn animated collages incorporating family photos and found footage. They are kinds of kinetic systems, structures, moving like the ‘perpetuum mobile’. In my case, the perpetuum mobile is the metaphor of the continually changing inner world of mine. There are a good number of nodes which are connected like impossible machines, and the movements of these nodes create an impossible hierarchy or dominations between the elements of the structure. Occasionally the system strives for completion, but these operations are just alibis, the real aim is to keep the movement endless, the structure closed and the hierarchy sustainable. Easy. Like these sketches.

Some of my recent sketches.

I am developing this series day by day, and uploading to my instagram account. I am using in this case family photos or found materials and i am combining with hand drawn elements.

My works from the show “Reality Cuts” (2020)

STREETVIEW ANDERLECHT

The exhibition titled "Reality Cuts" features works by 6 artists working in different genres, painting, ceramique, drawing, photography and animated video.

What they all have in common is that visually they all stand on the borderline between realism, abstract and surrealism. But in this case, it might even be misleading to use these classical categories because these works were created through very different processes. The relation of our time to images, the everyday reality of CG and virtual image creation may have influenced much more the way artists have shaped their inner images, as the various elements of the visuals have been juxtaposed.

I presented this installation during the show ‘bonum et malum’. The location is just a few blocks from the ‘famous’ train station of Grunewald, the place where the trains during the Holocaust went through. My Grandma was a survivor, she was in Ravensbruck in 1944, but i am not sure, how she got there But i found the super8 footage made by my grandfather, about there trip in the 70s to Berlin and to Ravensbruck, and i thought perhaps that was the second time when my Grandma came to Berlin…

https://www.kleinervonwiese.com/bonum-et-malum

 Iam inspired by the parallels what I see between human memory and computer memory: Our brains store away images to retrieve them later, like files stored away on a hard drive. But when we go back and try to re-access those memories, we may find them to be corrupted in some way--glitched, if you will.
When we see a picture (photo) we are able to remember the details, but only for [a] short period. In [the] long term we start to lose parts of the details and instead of these lost fragments we fill the gaps with our self-generated memories, memory fragments.
 
I always add a short narratives to accompany each photo, which often give imagined insight into why the subject’s appearance--and sometimes their mind--has been altered: A regular churchgoer starts doubting himself; a group of friends get too deep into their discussion of metaphysics; a glamorous woman is driven to paranoia by the bubbles in her champagne.

This is the first prototype (i call it modulator v1) of Moholy’s Light Space Modulator.

I presented first this work in Seoul in 2019, than i brought to Berlin for the show Bonum and Malum. The next step is the development of the Modulator V2 and V3, which means that i developed video, sound and light installation and i placed the modulator in to this audio-visual experiment.

The idea of Modulator V1 is based on my sketches, i made already in 2014. I used a youtube video as a source. Completing a series of sketches i created a digital 3d object. And finally with the support of S39 architectural studio i built the first edition.

Let me give you a short overview of the original piece:

One of the greatest Hungarian innovations, and one of the earliest electrically powered kinetic sculptures, Light Prop for an Electric Stage holds a central place in the history of modern sculpture.

Representing the culmination of Moholy-Nagy’s experimentation at the Bauhaus, it incorporates his interest in technology, new materials, and, above all, light. Moholy sought to revolutionize human perception and thereby enable society to better apprehend the modern technological world.

Light Prop for an Electric Stage, as Moholy-Nagy referred to it, not only pushes the temporal dimension of art but expands its spatial dimensions into the entire environment, including the viewer, who becomes a surface onto which light is reflected.

It embodies Moholy-Nagy’s goal of pushing art beyond static forms and introducing kinetic elements, in which the volume relationships are virtual ones, i.e., resulting mainly from the actual movement of the contours, rings, rods, and other objects.

The organic monument of the First World war is a spacial object based on the theory of network researching. The cornerstones are geological coordinates where key events of the war took place. These are physically linked by string to one another to create a network of connection expressing the relationship of cause and effect on the events through the continuity which is all of our history. The installation is more than 200 sqm big, the visitors can walk between the events, explore the connections between the events of the first world war. The end result is also a 3d print, which is a 'rescale' of the installation.

Photo: Camillle Blake

in the frame of Grosse Illusion, Berlin 2014

Interactive digital art piece for the DigitalArt exhibition, Center of Pompidou, Paris 2013

Touch.GL is an art app, extending glitch image modification to finger painting on the Android platform. Especially developed for the exhibition 'DigitalArt' in 2013. 

-It was an unusually warm day for November -BERLIN 2011

-kleinfield fussball -BERLIN 2012

-Artifact -DUBLIN 2013

-The Story of Nelli JERUSALEM 2014 with Anna Réka Baktay

Comfort Zone is a unique bilingual Berlin cookbook featuring the stories of more than 25 migrant Berliners and the foods and recipes that represent their multi-cultural journeys. With over 40 recipes from all over the world, this book celebrates the cosmopolitan nature of Berlin and explores the concept of what “home” means in our globalised world. 

The Comfort Zone - Berlin Cookbook will offer readers an insight into the people, places and cuisines that have, and continue to contribute to the distinct and diverse vibrancy that characterizes Berlin.

Author & concept: Anna Réka Baktay
Photography: Anna Tihanyi
Graphic design: David Szauder

http://comfortzonecookbook.com/

A selection of my curatorial projects in the last few years:

-KIK 8: Ganz Grosses Kino  -2016

-Die große Illusion -2014

-Sky Screen program: Mass and Mess -2013

Cinema Total is a central east europian film event during the berlinale, which takes place every year in the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin. This work is mostly about interior design, curation and installations. The last two years and in 2014 David Szauder is the visual director of the Cinema Total events

LightBox concept with multimedia content. In cooperation with S'39 Hybrid Design Manufacture.

Automatised digital collage system. Digital prints.

The Eden series i made in 2015 and shown during my solos show inRomania and in Argentina.

My Goal was to create another ‘automatised’ algorithm which transform the face or the body of the model and automatically generates ‘grows1 certain surface fractal.

The title is described here:

The Eden growth model describes the growth of specific types of clusters such as bacterial colonies and deposition of materials. These clusters grow by random accumulation of material on their boundary. These are also an example of a surface fractal.

A few examples how my artworks became published.