The human knowledge of nature is an interpretation that inescapably puts us in the center. We try to decipher communication between animals by relating it to our social interactions, and we compare parts of a plant to those of a human body. It took a long time for Western philosophy to recognize animals as independent entities, and similar efforts to integrate plants have barely started. Despite the rising prominence of posthumanist theories in recent years, attributing consciousness to every component of nature remains elusive.

Both Tamás Dezső and Nóra Szabó study natural phenomena, conducting their research as a kind of note-taking, without judging the subjects of their investigations, without using the observed life forms as metaphors, and without viewing nature as an inner landscape. Relying on meticulous and focused attention and incorporating philosophical and art theoretical concepts and texts, their creative process still leaves room for a free interpretation of the completed works.

Momentary Minds, a joint exhibition by the two artists, highlights the tiniest constantly changing yet seemingly permanent phenomena of nature, the primeval formation of shapes, and the insignificance of the brief time knowable to humans compared to the entire history of Earth. Just as our characterization of the form and functioning of living beings relies on comparisons to ourselves, it is hard for us to let go of our own sense of time. Yet, the nature that surrounds us is not to be measured in human lifetimes. A mayfly experiences its adult insect life within a few hours, a tree can live for thousands of years, and limestone caves that were formed hundreds of millions of years ago have been developing ever since. It is these subjective times that render the deep time preceding our written records inaccessible and that relativize our artificial concept of measurable time.

In order to explore the unique universes of the life forms that gave rise to the exhibited works and to explore the delicate fabric of the artworks themselves we need to slow down and focus, deepening our attention. But could we also adapt this kind of attention outside the exhibition space?

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The title of the exhibition refers to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s monadological theory, which posits that everything in the world, down to its smallest elements, is a kind of mind (monad) capable of reflecting the whole universe. Unlike humans, simple entities like plants or chemical compounds lack memory and the ability to think, and consequently have no consciousness of time, which makes their existence and striving purely momentary. The exhibition aims to challenge this notion by demonstrating the momentariness of the human concept of time.