Blinken OSA, Hidden Galleries Project • March 24, 2020

Secret Religious Activitiy

As the exhibition Faith – Trust – Secrecy is temporarily closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the OSA blog will present segments of the show with links to the Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, where the featured stories and themes can be explored in more detail.

Blinken OSA • March 22, 2020

Illusion and Patriotic Duty: the Paranoia Archive

“The situation is between peacetime democracy and war,” said the Prime Minister of Hungary, as the government introduced state of emergency in the country.

Blinken OSA • March 17, 2020

Through the Telephone

As a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak, public March 15 commemorations had to be cancelled in 2020. Whoever wanted to celebrate this day, they had to do so at home.

Blinken OSA • March 13, 2020

Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison

"(...) in order to see perfect disciplines functioning, rulers dreamt of the state of plague." To comprehend the meaning and the gravity of the Hungarian government's decision of declaring a state of emergency, one should revisit Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. The full text is available online, here we share a segment from the chapter Panopticism (pp195–200.)

Katalin Dobó, Judit Hegedűs • March 06, 2020

Posters Made by Atelier Populaire in 1968

The Archives received posters produced by Atelier Populaire, a workshop that supported the 1968 Paris protests with graphic works. “He threw shit at the fan!” Or literally: "He is the bed shitter." One of the best-known posters retorts Charles de Gaulle’s criticism of students.

Blinken OSA • March 03, 2020

Toward a Visual Ethics of Secret Police Archives

Opening speech to the exhibition Faith – Trust – Secrecy by James Kapaló, curator, Principal Investigator of the Hidden Galleries project. (Photo: Milán Rácmolnár)

Blinken OSA • February 27, 2020

Non-Scientific Momentums

Zsuzsa Horváth's career "reveals the non-scientific momentums that influence the course of science.” (Csákó Mihály)

Blinken OSA • February 12, 2020

Euphoria – Tinkering, Instead of Final Answers

The exhibition EUPHORIA? at the Capa Center is open to visitors only until February 23—the exhibition addressing the 1989 regime change also includes material from several collections that are available at OSA.

Kristóf Nagy • January 29, 2020

In remembrance of Tibor Philipp (1953–2020)

I never met Tibor Philipp. I never met him personally, but I’ve met his name many times, as I was dealing with the history of the Inconnu Group and György Krassó; I recognized him on photos and movies, and I read state security reports on him.

Ioana Macrea-Toma • October 18, 2019

Technologies of Truth

The book about Cold War broadcasting and Radio Free Europe remains to be written. Because of the unusual arrangement of such a Cold War operation, designed to provide truthful information to the countries beyond the Iron Curtain without having access to the reality on the ground, histories tend to be torn between an American side of the story and an Eastern European one.