István Kántor:
István Kántor, best known as Monty Cantsin, founder of Neoist?! anti-movement has been active in the fields of media-arts for more than two decades, consciously working with new technical possibilities of sound and visual presentation. Kántor uses his body, mechanical and digital devices, video and computer animation to deal with the structure of total communication.
His work has been presented at major festivals, video and performance art events, in Canada, USA and Europe. In 1987 he has been invited participant at documenta 8, Kassel, Germany, technology/media section; his performance work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou in 1989; in 1993 the Les Cent Jours d´Art Contemporain, Montreal has shown his recent work and a retrospective of his videos; in 1994 he has been included in Video Sonority exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada; in 1995 he took part in Beyond the Bridge media art exhibition at the Filmmuseum of Nederlands, Amsterdam; 1996 the Festival du nouveau cinema in Montreal presented a special program of his selected video works.
In 1997 he took part at many major new media and performance festivals, among them Kurzfilmtage, Oberhausen, Germany, WRO ´97 Media Art Biennale, Woczlaw, Poland, 7a*11d, Toronto, Canada, Word Wide Video Festival, Holland, 3rd Manifestation Internationale Vidéo et Art Electronique, Montreal, Canada, ROOTless ´97, Hull, England, Spiel Art ´97, München, Germany, Electronic Media Forum, Dessau-Bauhaus, Germany; he organized and co-ordinated a series of Neoist?! anti-events that took place in three cities in Hungary.
His main subjects are the decay of technology and the struggle of the individual in technological society. His work has been described by the media as rebellious, anti-authoritarian, intellectually assaultive, as well as technically innovative and highly experimental. His radically changing and often extreme creative ambitions are always related to his living environment and social situation. For better understanding of his art it is important to mention that Kántor/Cantsin has been several times arrested and imprisonned for his illegal and undesirable blood-works.
In recent years Kántor/Cantsin (lately also known as AMEN!) has been experimenting in the fields of sound-performance/installation and video, concentratig on installation and performance works in which sounds and actions are equally important and directly integrated in order to create a new extended sonic-language.
