Kinga Tóth

Kinga Tóth, born in Hungary, is a writer, intermedia artist and performer. She studied German language and literature, communication science and education. She comes from the punk and noise scene and has collaborated with various musicians and composers, for example with Silvia Rosani on the music theater piece and installation “Electrical Jungle” as part of the Hannsmann-Poethen Literature Scholarship.n in German, Hungarian and English and presents her texts in installations and performances. Most recently she published MariaMachina (vocal poetry album, DaaD 2024), Mondgesichter (Matthes&Seitz) 2022), sandwich (zine, curated by Esther Eppstein, Zurich, 2022), AnnaMaria sings/singt/énekel (art album, trilingual (Eng/De/Hu), MODEM-PRAE, 2023), TRANSIT (2021, SuKulTur), PARTY (2020, parasitenpresse), OFFSPRING (2020, YAMA). For her international intermedia work, she received the Hugo Ball Prize and the Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck of the Center Pompidou-Fondazione Bonotto in 2020. In 2023/24 she was a fellow of the DaaD Artists-in-Residence Program in Berlin and an MQ fellow in Vienna.
Kinga Tóth researches nun art in the Inter-University Doctoral School “Cultures in Transformation” and deals with the life and work of nuns in her own artistic practice.
www.kingatoth.com

Dissertation project:
How the word comes alive – prayer as performance 
Nun art as text body performance  

First supervisor: Univ.-Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ Lucia D’Errico (MOZ)
Second supervisor: Univ.-Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ Angelika Walser (PLUS)

In my dissertation project, I am looking for transgressions and points of reference between nuns’ art and contemporary performative literature. I am primarily interested in the art of nuns as a performative act: I would like to examine how this 900-year-old tradition, which refers to the philosophical, literary, artistic or ‘sacred’ texts of women living in seclusion behind walls, was and is realised in a liturgical-performative way in their daily activities. In my opinion, the nuns endeavour to transmit, present and experience textual performance in the course of their daily activities. This does not only mean the liturgical texts, but that the entire daily activity of the nuns, the so-called ‘Hours’, can in fact be seen as a constant performance for the Word, for the Gospel.  In view of all these requirements, the life of the nuns can also be seen as a Gesamtkunstwerk or – in the case of this work – as an interdisciplinary, performative literary embodiment and in parallel with performance art (text-body performance).

The act of prayer is the focus of this scientific-artistic work, i.e. the process by which the word is ‘animated’ (Teresa of Ávila) with the gesture of prayer. Can the scientific, descriptive-analytical text be internalised, what happens when the described, analysed text formats meet in a performative act?   Are the prayer gestures, the (prayer) work, able to connect the descriptive and the representational text?  Can prayer and the complementary activities that follow prayer be perceived and analysed as ‘live poetry’ (Julia Lajta-Novak)? With ethnographic research (documentation of the everyday life and work of nuns, interviews, video and sound recordings), analysis and description of the verbal performance of written texts and performances (John Miles Foley, performance theory and theatre studies, e.g. Erika-Fischer Lichte, Judith Butler) one can get a sufficient view of the textual body and its ‘realisation’.  In addition to the text performance analysis, it is important to examine which (ecofeminist) behavioural patterns these personalities represent, which roles they have had and still have in society throughout history, how female principles and values have changed, and whether any changes can be recognised at all in view of the current (eco-political) situation.

The scientific work is combined with artistic activities (prayer performance, lecture performance, collective singing workshops, re-enactments, eco-feminist prayer band, art objects and installations, etc.).