Máté Bartha

In his project, Anima Mundi, Máté Bartha creates a universe of images, attempting to present the hidden anatomy of the metropolis as a metaphysical mirror of human existence. Photography serves as his core instrument to envision a mysterious all-time City and as a device to scan for stealthy connections and clandestine organizing principles. In Anima Mundi, he musters images of real and staged scenery taken in different parts of the world and collages them together into an unidentifiable Metropolis, a virtual location where he sets out to find “the order of things and the regularities of contingency”.*

The city, as the antithesis of the natural environment and the embodiment of human civilization, can carry both positive and negative meanings. As the economic, political and cultural center of the settled community, the metropolis – mysterious in its complexity – can be seen as the highest achievement of civilization. It is no coincidence that…